Is Reality Subservient to Bivalent/classical Logic?

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In classical/bivalent logic there is a principle known as ex falso quodlibet, which is gobledygook for, I take it, once you allow for one measly contradiction then, demonstrably, anything follows.

Whatever the fundamental truth about consistency might be, there sure seems to be a good bit of contradiction going around. And yet, not everything seems to follow. Although, classically speaking, it should. So what gives?


J

anything follows from a contradiction by material implication. That is one of the problems with material implication. False materially implies any proposition.

ruveyn

Reality pays no mind to logic.

I used to say that everyone thinks logically...they just don't always follow the same set of premises in their reasoning.

A "crazy" person thinks logically. They just operate under different rules than "sane" people. Once you understand the rules they operate under, you can logically determine what they will do in a given situation.

Life has its own rules. Logic just doesn't understand those rules yet.

Are there any contradictions in the real world?

ruveyn

You might want to have a look at so-called paraconsistent logics, in which the EFQ principle (along with some other basic logical rules) is removed, thus allowing a theory to contain certain contradictions without trivializing. An interesting book about this is:

Graham Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1995. Second edition, Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-924421-9.

It should be noted, however, that paraconsistent logics are - as a matter of rule - less expressive than classical logic, i.e., fewer inferences can be made with them. See also: Wikipedia link. By the way, Priest is one of a very few philosophers who actually believe that some version of paraconsistent logic must be true in the "real world". Even if you don't agree with him, it's very refreshing to read his arguments.

... Wrong!

OK, so maybe it's medieval Latin. Right?

Literally, it means: from falsehood [there follows] whatever one likes.

Not sure. Haven't figures out all the rules yet.

Reality wins every time.

You might truly believe that you can fly or that god will save you but try jumping off a tall building and see what happens.

Since logic is a model that is intended to describe the function of the, "real world," it stands to reason that reality can never be subservient to the model that seeks to describe it.

If logic and reality come into conflict, it is, perforce, logic and not reality that must bend to accommodate the other. If logic tells us that a bumblebee cannot fly, then the flaw lies in the logic, not the bumblebee.

The true meaning of ex falso quodlibet is that you can never accommodate, "the exception that proves the rule." Practically, of course, such rigour impossible. Engineers use, "error terms," statisticians use, "confidence intervals," social scientists compartmentalize, "outliers." It is only pure mathematicians and philosophers who have the luxury of working within perfect systems in which a single contradiction demonstrates a comprehensive disproof.

Logic (and there are several logics) is the science/discipline of valid inference. Ultimately logic is an abstract rendition of our linguistic habits.

There is logic for contexts in which there is perfect knowledge. There is logic for contexts in which things are imperfectly known. There is logic for contexts in which things change rapidly. There is logic related to language in which the terms and concepts are open ended.

The classical logic of Aristotle is highly restricted and modern logic is well beyond what Aristotle did.

ruveyn

ruveyn

I'm certain that even you don't have a clue what nonsense you just typed.

Actually, I do.

The simple fact is that "logic" is flawed because it's only as accurate as the rules it follows.

Everyone does things via logical processes, but if you follow a different set of fundamental rules (e.g., crazy people), the outcome won't match what the majority of "normal" people would do.

Once you understand the rules, the outcome is more predictable.

Logic is just a set of rules defined by humans. It doesn't hold a basis in reality, only in our experiences/observations of reality.

With the new sciences however, we have to redefine our version of logic, just as we do our version of reality.
It's called a paradigm shift.

Quantum Mechanics, Chaos & Complexity theory. They change what we know to be true.

it's statistically possible to fall up and into outer space... ain't gonna happen, but it can.
It's statistically possible to run through a wall...

Causality breaks down when we look at things at the smallest level. Once causality breaks down, we cannot any longer hold onto the dear and treasured assurances of logic.

Luckily however when causality breaks down we fall into the world of statistical probabilities.
Why luckily? because regardless of logic and independent of causality, there is a law in Statistics, called the Law Of Averages (or Aggregates)

If something has a 0.0000000001% chance of happening, any given chance, it could happen. If there is just one occurrence, that event may really screw things up badly
However... your body has a lot of atoms (i'll guess 10^24 or 10^25). so if the above chance is the rate for a given atom in your body to run through the wall without hitting an atom in the wall itself...
Then you have to take that low % chance and raise it to the power of 10^24.
that would be a 1 in X chance where X makes the number of atoms in the known universe insignificant.

Quantumly speaking, nothing is absolute, therefore logic is not absolute.
Uh... Ruveyn you asked if there were any contradictions... from Quantum theory there follows the only true contradiction I know of.
I have resolved it though, but it's open for debate. "Nothing is absolute" really means "nothing is absolutely positive/true"
And, the statement is indeed an absolute... but it's an absolute negative... So really doesn't violate itself.

I submit String Theory and Global Warming as examples of ex falso quodlibet.