1Sep/0410
The Illogic of Logic
Sanity is over-rated. So is sensibility, logic, and proof. I say, let’s go for gut feel and emotion more often than we actually do.
About
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan is a copywriter, photographer and goofball from Chennai. He is also an archaeologist, historian and a city lover. He is currently a documentary film-maker and desk-monkey for a film production house.
Photos
Archives
Categories
Blogroll
Badges
RSS/XML-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. -
September 1st, 2004 - 02:15
sensibility,logic,rationality may be over rated.
some people performed an experiment of picking a portfolio of random stocks (no analysis involved )and found that they got pretty good returns whereas other fund managers who used their logic and rationale performed worse.
may be gut feel would work better
September 1st, 2004 - 02:22
Thank you! Thank you for that wonderful anecdote. It just strengthens my thoughts, my gut feel.
I do believe that sometimes, people just go overboard on proof and logical behaviour and rational actions, that we overlook hunch and intuition.
I’ve more often been guided (and guided rightly) by impulsive actions and hunches.
September 2nd, 2004 - 02:56
I too would appriciate that but think in this way…. Will it be possible to be guided by gut feeling only… I dont beleive in taking gut only… Gut should be aided by reason and logic.. just a gut feeling might give you a start but it will not get you further..
September 2nd, 2004 - 10:56
In case you did not realize – the formalization of logic was a result of earlier men’s gut feeling.
September 3rd, 2004 - 05:35
Au contraire! I disagree with it hook line and sinker. As to the anecdote of the random experiment performed in the stockmarket try doing the same over a larger sample size. one swallow doesn’t make a summer neither does one freakish sweep in the stockmarket(assuming ofcourse the anecdote was not apocryphal) validate that gut feeling is better. It is a fallacy beyond “logical” comprehension!:D ofcourse am not saying that logic and analysis is infallible but over a wider sample set it is much better. if you have the patience may I suggest Emmanuel Kant’s “For Critique of Pure Reason” ? or a bit esoteric Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and The Art of MotorCycle Maintenance”. Give it a shot:)
Girish…!
September 3rd, 2004 - 07:03
I’ve read Zen, and like it. I still disagree though. Not that the book made any big impact in me.
I don’t give much to either illogic or logic. Except, that there are more insane people (how you look at it differs) than sane ones, and to those insane, and illogical, the logical doesn’t appeal. Appeal to their emotions, and you’ll get a response. appeal to their brains, and you get nothing.
September 3rd, 2004 - 09:01
Which then was formalised, systematised, regulated, and in the process lost all it’s effectiveness.
See, I personally have nothing against logic and rational decision making. But sometimes, one does need to act intuitively, without analysis. Be impromptu, be spontaneous.
September 3rd, 2004 - 09:08
or as they say – familiarity had bred contempt.
September 3rd, 2004 - 09:10
Possibly.
September 4th, 2004 - 05:09
How did logic come into existence in man’s head? Certainly out of illogic, whose realm originally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who made inferences in a way different from ours perished; for all that, their ways might have been truer. Those, for example, who did not know how to find often enough what is “equal” as regards both nourishment and hostile animals—those, in other words, who subsumed things too slowly and cautiously—were favored with a lesser probability of survival than those who guessed immediately upon encountering similar instances that they must be equal. The dominant tendency, however, to treat as equal what is merely similar—an illogical tendency, for nothing is really equal—is what first created any basis for logic.