<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />The word "logic" has been bandied about a lot lately mostly in ways that bear little resemblance to the traditional meanings of the word; so I thought I should begin there. Historically during the Enlightenment and the era of the Scientific Revolution, the scientific method was developed by Francis Bacon and other philosophers, and then refined during subsequent generations of thinkers. It was designed to replace the older logic, or more specifically the philosophical method of deriving proofs through the use of inductive, deductive, a priori, a posteriori, symbolic logic, and so on. In short, logic is a game philosophers play; it usually concerns propositions, and linguistic matters rather than matters of empirical fact, Mathematics also deal with symbolic logic but its logic is usually more precise than the verbal variety, hence in modern times it is mathematics, and not philosophy that is the handmaiden of science.
After 2,500 years of trying, philosophers are still not universally agreed on the principles of logic, or on its exact meaning; as it is tied to metaphysics and other branches of philosophy, there are several schools of thought (subjectivism, objectivism, idealism, materialism, intrinsicism, realism, pragmatism, and on, and on). There is no consensus, and no single paradigm in philosophy or in any of its basic components, such as logic. But that doesnt mean we can't still use the word and concept as tool or intellectual aid in helping us in our attempt to think more clearly. Its just not an exact science; the best way to get around the imprecision is to define our terms and to use language as clearly and as carefully, and with as much consistency and honesty as possible. Nevertheless, we can't get at the truth (i.e., can't prove anything beyond simple propositions) by pure reason alone; our best hope is the scientific method.
Returning to the subject at hand, Gorme is right. I dont think Ive proven anything regarding these faces. Nor do I think I have ever claimed to. But for a number of logical reasons I think there are strong suggestions of artificiality on Mars, typically in the form of several anthropomorphic (human-form) faces, a few known animal forms, one or two pyramids, or three-sided artificial-like mounds, a spiral trench or strip mine, a T or E shaped trench with uniform slopes and corners, some possibly hermetically sealed structures, and some possible wrecked machinery or ships. But I don't think any of these objects are proved to be artificial either logically or scientifically. But they do indicate the need for further study IMO. [to be continued]
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Neil,
Logic was originally invented as a word game. The idea was to force a person to make a proposition that was wrong, such as black is white. Then by asking him questions he could only answer yes or no to, the questioner would eventually force him to concede black was white. For example he might argue that some cats are black, others are white, and the person would have to answer yes. Then a grey cat is kind of black, he says yes, and it is kind of white and he says yes, therefore it is black and white, and he says yes, but it only has one color, he says yes, therefore that color is black and also white, he says yes, therefore black is white. After this Aristotle formulated exact logical rules from this game, but it was mainly seen as a tool in rhetoric or sophistry, to prove something that is wrong.
But the best definition of logic like mathematics is that it should be a tautology, that its axioms imply the answer. So if the evidence for artificiality is good enough it should imply that answer, as much as 2+2=4. One should avoid logic as a word game like the ancient Greeks used it for.
For example extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is nothing to do with logic, it is just a shorthand to exclude data the mainstream finds inconvenient. It also means ordinary claims require ordinary evidence, or don't worry about proving things properly as long as the mainstream like the answer.
But the issue of artifacts on Mars is not about criticising the mainstream it is all about the data. George Haas worked for a long time on a peer reviewed paper to try and get it published, and whether it does get accepted or not the arguments in it became more and more professional and well thought out. Ultimately you have to trust that mainstream science will listen to you eventually if you try hard enough to be self criticial, spot your own errors and do good enough research.
