Re: logic is innate?

From: Acid Pooh (poopdeville_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: 29 Nov 2004 13:39:47 -0800

Mitch Harris <harrisq@tcs.inf.tu-dresden.de> wrote in message news:<310mqkF35dgm5U1@uni-berlin.de>...
> Mxsmanic wrote:
> > Mitch Harris writes:
> >
> >>Wow. Do you know of any scientific support for this?
> >
> > Just about all the accumulated data for psychological testing over the
> > past century support this.
>
> Maybe you could be more explicit just to help me out.
>
> >>There's quite a bit of support for the innateness of language
> >>ability, but I have never heard of such a claim for innateness
> >>of -deductive logic- ability.
> >
> > Since it's difficult to survive without it, I'm surprised that anyone
> > questions it.
>
> Well, that's not a particularly satisfying reason to not question
> something. Humans seem to need reasoning to survive, but jellyfish
> don't seem to need much. Do rats and crows reason (successfully use
> abstract logical inferences)? Where and how does it start (both in
> the individual and in the species)?
>
> > In any case, one certainly doesn't need a math class to learn to reason.
> > We all are born with the ability to reason, both deductively and
> > inductively.
>
> Sure. Informally, I'm with you. But just not convinced. Maybe people
> do learn how to reason. Or maybe there's an innate capacity for
> reason (a logic module, analogous to a face recognition area of the
> brain) which, through exposure, we develop well. Is there a brain
> lesion/freezing study that shows where "modus ponens" lies?.

I think that most people have strong intuitions about the meanings of
the words 'truth' and 'falsity' and rely on those to do the intuitive
equivalent of a model-theoretic argument. However, their notions of
truth and falsity are often not sophisticated enough, since things
like the Paradox of Material Implication, are, well, paradoxical to
many people until they shift their point of view. I have *some*
empirical evidence for this, since I've tutored both math and logic --
but obviously not enough to make sweeping claims.

'cid 'ooh

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