Logic, Imagination and Deduction
"Quit your day dreaming"
"Mr. Gies, are you still with us?"
"Hello!"
These are some of the common inquisitions I heard while trying my best to pay attention during elementary school classes. It seems that I had some issues with staying on task. Perhaps it was a problem that I would outgrow, or at least be able to control, but as the years went on by I found that time did not change me. What a break! It turns out that using my imagination has helped me numerous times in solving networking issues, writing code, troubleshooting electronic devices, and designing complex systems. So are critical thinking, logic and deduction, and problem solving learned skills? Or are they simply tied to ones
…show more content…
Hoffmann states in his essay "The Chemist" that "One has to imagine, to conjure up a model that fits often irregular observations" (Hoffmann 470). So when the norm does not work, when the formulas don’t apply, even the "left brained" scientists need to think "Out side the box".
Imagination becomes the key to solving the complex problems. Bronowski could not have stated it any clearer when he said, "To imagine means to make images and to move them about inside one’s head in new arrangements" (Bronowski 463). Is this not what logical reasoning and deduction is all about? Logic can be described as having the ability to imagine multiple scenarios and solutions and pick the most appropriate for any given circumstance.
The question is, how do we get this ability? Is the ability to imagine a skill that is learned through life and situations, or is it a matter of genetics? A naïve perspective on genetics would say that something is missing if an individual possesses sub-par deduction abilities; however, according to Ridley "We have been misled into thinking that genetics is all about disorders…"(Ridley 473). The fact in truth may be, the ability to reason and imagine may be determined by the presence of a certain type of gene or a particular combination of genes. Personally I would like to think that we are not locked into some predetermined category. Skills of logic and deduction
Most people tend to get the wrong impression when they think of “Imagination overcoming reason.” They believe that the only people that fall under this category are those with extreme fears or those who are borderline insane. Although this
Within critical thinking I have learned critical thinking skills such as how to communicate appropriately through the use of writing. some of those skills include writing to discover patterns, find new ways of tackling a project, even to improve a new way of thinking (The Craft of research p.14). Some
Imagination is the beginning of creation.You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. Out of all the stories we have read they all have shown how your imagination overcomes reasoning. In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, Montressor let his imagination take over him and was planning his revenge by just the thoughts he was getting ,and by that it made him kill a man. In “The fall of the house of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, Roderick’s thoughts made him believe things that aren’t really true and because of that it was damaging him or making him get out of control.. One event that happened in the story was that he thought that his sister was dead and so
Building off the thought of an idea is a judgment. According to Descartes, judgments are applying our ideas to the external world, trying to affirm or deny something as they have an objective reality. He states that judgments are a key component to why we can commit errors. For example to affirm or deny that a certain store has exactly ten people in it would be a presumed judgment on reality. You are not only taking the idea of the amount of people in a store, but trying to apply it to the external world, which can lead to error. By sheer luck you may be correct in some cases, or you may be wrong. It is in making judgments that human beings can error. In meditation three Descartes states “the principal and most frequent error to be found in judgments consists in the fact that I judge that the ideas which are in me are similar to or in conformity with certain things outside of me” (Descartes Meditation 3, 36). When ideas that are within the mind are brought
Jonathan Vogel wrote Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation as a solution to accept the real world hypothesis over any skeptical hypothesis. Vogel presents a compelling argument for a definitive reason to accept that the world we are experiencing is in fact the real world. I believe that Vogel’s argument falls short of proving a reason for accepting the real world hypothesis over a skeptical one. In this paper I will clearly explain Vogels argument, explain some important concepts to understand, and attempt to refute the argument.
Abortion should be legal, because there are too many things that go wrong. A women could be raped and need to get one because she doesn’t want to look at the child and doesn’t want to feel it grow, freedom of choosing what to do and how government involvement in personal decisions such as this could lead to potentially having the government deem how many children you can have or even how many pregnancies you are allowed, medical reasons for abortion, and the ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights.
What kind of tribe is the Eneon? We do not have much information about this tribe as the anthropologists had just found out their existence. We only have limited information we received from the anthropologists. The information are based on the environment and climate they live in, the food they eat, their family and children, books and arts and their social aspect and attitudes toward war that the Eneon tribe are live in.
r. P1) The classroom teacher is crucial to the development and academic success of the average student, administrators simply are ancillary to this effort.
Perception is quite an important piece in real life as well. The power of perceptions is amazing how it can actually help one or bring one down. One has the power to determine the response from events. “Perceptions begin when the human brain receives data from the body’s five sense.” (Enayati, A., 2012, p.2). An example that demonstrates how perception is able to help is Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who lived three years in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Frankl became aware that he had only one freedom during that time which was the freedom to determine his response for a sorrowful truth. To imagine is to have the power to decide the response to events. Frankl decided that he would image seeing his wife, teaching students about what happened during the Holocaust, and the lessons learned while being in camp.
Even though higher yields are met for demand and human consumption, factory farming is cruel to animals due to the fact animals are often subject to harsh living conditions, more susceptible to diseases and injuries and are treated inhumanely during the slaughtering process. Unfortunately, with an increase in human population worldwide, the strain on farmers to meet the demand increases as well. This in turn causes more animals to be subject to this cruelty.
A skill that I feel I’m best at is seeing how the pieces fit together. This would be critically thinking. When told a story about hiring someone to try to annoy a person. Something about a flashing light and the placement of a clothesline. I was able to understand the story and provided a logical explanation about how this was an annoyed neighbor. Then, once you gave up the answer, I was reassured my reasoning skills were logically sound. Some stories I read though, made me wonder if the information was for real, such as eating
Watching the YouTube clip “Dr. Carol Dweck on Fixed vs. Growth Mindsets” helped me to realize some of my personal shortcomings in critical thinking, including that I was certainly brought up to believe there are just some things that you are good at and some things that you are not good at. Dr. Carol Dweck says that talents and abilities can be cultivated through effort and instruction, which can speak directly to
The abilities included in critical thinking would allow someone to construct logical arguments. The truth of the premises of those arguments, however, are not contingent on the ability to think critically. The logical construction of an argument requires some aspect of critical thinking in that logic/reasoning is included in the definition of critical thinking.
Education plays an imperative role in developing these skills. Young and Warren (2011), in their review of the education literature, stated that a number of cross-sectional research studies have shown that a student’s critical thinking ability can improve while at college. While Parcarella and Terenzini (2005) approximate that a student can improve their critical thinking skills by 63% by the end of their sophomore year. According to Hurt (2007) these skills must be developed consistently, purposefully and rationally over time to enable students to appropriately respond to the intricate issues that the working environment
There are no mental processes which are distinct from intelligent acts. The operations of the mind are not merely represented by intelligent acts, but are the same as intelligent acts. Thus, an act of remembering, dreaming, knowing, or willing is not merely a clue to some hidden mental process or intellectual operation, it is how that mental process or intellectual operation is defined. A logical proposition is not merely a clue to a particular mode of reasoning, it is that mode of reasoning.