My brain is fuzzy...
Kosh: Truth is a three-edged sword
Thank all those who replied to my question yesterday regarding critical thinking. That helped me zero in on a clear definition.
I admit that term has bothered me since I first heard it back in high school. How is 'critical thinking' different from logical discernment or rational analysis? It seems that there is an additional nuance of attempting to be completely objective, stripping away all bias.
In watching and participating in various debates over the years, I marvel at the absolute certainty each side of an issue believes they have the only correct and well-formed logical conclusion. Sometimes when I map out the logical statements of both sides, I find that both sides present a logically valid argument. (truthfully, I often find gaping holes and fallacies, but let's stick with the valid ones) Ironically, also find that both conclusions cannot logically be true simultaneously. What gives? (other than my own fallibility in mapping out the arguments)
I believe that the differences lie in the strength of premises. In order for a logical argument to be complete, well-formed, and represent (provable) truth, it must be supported by a complete set of valid premises.
Pierre-Simon Laplace: What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
Do we truly support every argument we make with all possible premises associated with it? Instead, do we not choose a subset of all possibilities in order to expeditiously prove our point, possibly ignoring the extremes and confounds? For some arguments that are narrowly scoped, it's easy to have a complete premise set. For most, it often too cumbersome to seek for a complete set and instead create assumptions.
I often take a page from my AI research and use the fuzzy logic approach. i.e. conclusions are not just true nor false. They are fractionally true (80% true and 20% false). Thus, based upon the weighting of the premises, assuming the connecting logic is sound, I assign a fuzzy value to the conclusion. At least I'm 60% sure this is valid method and 30% sure if it makes sense.
No, I won't touch the topics of absolutes, the weight of symbology, language imperfections, etc. Perhaps later.
Manly's Maxim: Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence