Many people believe that the best arguments incorporate elements of both logic and emotion.
However, it is clear that the logical flow is the only idea desirable in debate and in pursuit of the truth.
Emotion can mislead people to jump to false conclusions. People have false ideas about their "intuition" guiding them, which is supposed to transcend reason. However, intuition has been known to fail on numerous occasions. Here is one of those examples where a seemingly intuitive answer is wrong.
One cannot rely on emotion in discovering the truth. Emotion is only good at clouding the mind and creating delusions that one is correct. Logic is the only thing one can use for determining the correct solution.
So what are your thoughts about the Logic-Emotion Dichotomy? Is it necessary? Is the emotional component a fundamental force of humanity or is it an undermining flaw?
But people don't live only in the world of logic, there are flowers over there, which, if prepared by science, lose attraction, being represented by huge formulae and other diagrams.
But can one not explain attraction using physics / chemistry, etc.?
So can logic. Your logic is not pure or provable. It is inherently circular, and the product of flawed information and faulty inductive reasoning.
Logic is not a pure force that will always bring you to the truth. What you call reason is a mess of fallacies you don't even notice, and its greatest flaw is that you can't see it for what it is. Not that it's not useful.
You're quite mistaken. Reason cannot contain fallacies. Most rhetoric is grounded on emotion, and most formal fallacies are misrepresentations of defined terms (such as a misrepresentation of the term "imply" when affirming the consequent).
Sometimes you can determine that the speaker is lying using emotional sense only, thus preventing bad outcome for you.
One cannot interpret the emotional data without reasoning.
But can one not explain attraction using physics / chemistry, etc.?
Don't confuse science and logic, one is the the product of the other but they are not the same thing.
It seems as though you're attacking "my logic." Not "the logic" which IS pure and provable - and isn't circular, relying in tautologies to prove mathematics.
If you're logic isn't pure then why hold it above emotions? Wouldn't incorrect logic be just as detrimental to debate as being overtly emotional? Perhaps even more so because you believe it to be true whereas most people are able to recognize their own emotional bias.
Don't confuse science and logic, one is the the product of the other but they are not the same thing.
This is the quote I responded to:
there are flowers over there, which, if prepared by science, lose attraction
If you're logic isn't pure then why hold it above emotions?
Reading again - it looks as if I'm putting "my logic" down. This was not my intent. My logic is the same logic as the logic (but a little incomplete as of now :P).
Thought I should clear something up. Logic, as it is being used here, is going to be concerned with the form of particular statements and how they relate to one another. So logic can justify the inference from 'All men are mortal' and 'Socrates is a man' to the conclusion 'Socrates is mortal'. In logic, we assume the premises to be true. But there is going to be some meaningful way of understanding the statements 'All men are mortal' and 'Socrates is a man'. Logic can't give us the sense (or meaning, if you like) of these terms. It can't tell us what the world would look like if these statements are true versus if they're false. We also need empirical observation and some way to relate the statements to a picture. Already, this is a huge project to even explicate, much less actually discuss. But it's clear that there's a whole lot going on in between pure logic and pure emotion. Where would empirical observation fit into this spectrum? And is the spectrum a gradient, slowly flowing from one method of reasoning to another? Or is it sharply delineated, with no overlap between methods? Or is it even a gradient? Logic is a way of reasoning, but is emotion? And for that matter is empirical observation? Maybe we can draw conclusions that are based, in part, on emotion. For example, I could get the sense that my girlfriend is cheating on me. But I'm still going to use logic to reason to that conclusion. Here's an example:
I get the feeling my girlfriend is cheating on me. If I get that sense, then she's probably cheating on me. Therefore, she's cheating on me.
This is clearly an instance of modus ponens, but the justification for the premises is based on emotion rather than objective data.
So maybe we should clarify a bit more what we're talking about. Let's make it clear what precludes what and what implies what.
Logic is a way of reasoning, but is emotion? And for that matter is empirical observation? Maybe we can draw conclusions that are based, in part, on emotion. For example, I could get the sense that my girlfriend is cheating on me. But I'm still going to use logic to reason to that conclusion.
However, the distinction I would like to make is that emotion applies to feelings that can be identified but not completely put into words. If feelings are able to be expressed into words with certainty (you have tangible evidence that your girlfriend is cheating rather than just a feeling), you can reach a logical verdict.
This is the dichotomy. Here, it is clear that empirical data does not fit into this.
