AWPrime said:
I'm not even sure what you mean by this question --- but the idea of trying to answer such a question "logically" is silly. If logic says that such a thing cannot exist, but it doesn't follow the "laws of logic," then there's no reason it should follow the particular law of logic that says that it can't exist.
More generally, the "laws of logic" aren't a single unified whole; logic is a set of processes for deriving consequences from a set of assumptions. Much of science has been an exploration of various assumptions, including in many cases rewriting or completely rejecting assumptions as it was found that the assumptions yielded consequences that the world didn't follow. (A rather cliche' example of this is Einstein's famous equation: it was assumed, falsely, that matter and energy were separate concepts that were conserved independently.)
If we were to find something that doesn't follow the laws of logic and causality, this would probably result in scientists adjusting the laws to take into account the newly discovered phenomenon.
Dr Adequate
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Re: Re: Logic question
In the case of the "laws of causality", I'm not sure what those would be --- it sounds more like philosophy than science to me. If there's a place for them in sceince, then something which breaks these laws, whatever they are, shows that they're not really laws.
The laws of logic are not rewritable --- they're a priori. It's not like physical laws. "If we had some ham, then we'd have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs" --- this is not empirical, it couldn't be false.new drkitten said:
In the case of the "laws of causality", I'm not sure what those would be --- it sounds more like philosophy than science to me. If there's a place for them in sceince, then something which breaks these laws, whatever they are, shows that they're not really laws.
Stimpson J. Cat
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AWPrime,
I think the question is very badly posed.
First, can something exist that doesn't follow the laws of logic? I don't know what this means. The laws of logic are not laws that things follow. They are rules for drawing conclusions from premises. I am guessing that the intention was "Can something exist which is logically self-contradictory?".
If so, then the question is meaningless. If X is defined in a self-contradictory way, then the statements "X exists", and "X does not exist", do not actually mean anything at all. They therefore cannot really be said to be true or false.
As to the laws of causality, I am not sure which laws are being referred to. Our most fundamental laws of nature are not causal, which would seem to imply that the things which they describe to not follow any laws of causality. So with respect to that question, I would say the answer is "yes".
Dr. Stupid
I think the question is very badly posed.
First, can something exist that doesn't follow the laws of logic? I don't know what this means. The laws of logic are not laws that things follow. They are rules for drawing conclusions from premises. I am guessing that the intention was "Can something exist which is logically self-contradictory?".
If so, then the question is meaningless. If X is defined in a self-contradictory way, then the statements "X exists", and "X does not exist", do not actually mean anything at all. They therefore cannot really be said to be true or false.
As to the laws of causality, I am not sure which laws are being referred to. Our most fundamental laws of nature are not causal, which would seem to imply that the things which they describe to not follow any laws of causality. So with respect to that question, I would say the answer is "yes".
Dr. Stupid
TillEulenspiegel
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Can something exist that doesn't follow the laws of logic and causality?
To answer both questions .Yes. Look at Physics.
This whole discipline of theoretical physics has more pretzel logic that one can imagine. The kicker is that the outcome is predictable and the setting is concrete . It's the transition between the two that is the undefined and ill-understood.
Two examples that demonstrate it's behavior. The double slit experiment where the outcome is either that light Is a wave or corpuscular in nature. The outcome is depends how we measure it, in other words the outcome can be determined in how we set up the experiment. An odd logic no doubt.
Certain Quantum cases shares this odd behavior. Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" is his framing of a particular antithetical traits where the behavior of certain particle pairs violate the credo that no information can exceed c, yet there is demonstrable behavior of particles separated exhibit instantaneous linkage at a distance, which violates no "FTL travel". .
So we wind up at the position that our model is false or our scientific analysis are wanting. You Choose.
To answer both questions .Yes. Look at Physics.
This whole discipline of theoretical physics has more pretzel logic that one can imagine. The kicker is that the outcome is predictable and the setting is concrete . It's the transition between the two that is the undefined and ill-understood.
Two examples that demonstrate it's behavior. The double slit experiment where the outcome is either that light Is a wave or corpuscular in nature. The outcome is depends how we measure it, in other words the outcome can be determined in how we set up the experiment. An odd logic no doubt.
Certain Quantum cases shares this odd behavior. Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" is his framing of a particular antithetical traits where the behavior of certain particle pairs violate the credo that no information can exceed c, yet there is demonstrable behavior of particles separated exhibit instantaneous linkage at a distance, which violates no "FTL travel". .
So we wind up at the position that our model is false or our scientific analysis are wanting. You Choose.
