Islamic Logic Gains a Foothold in Western Thought
Al-Jaz Networks
Dateline 27 Sept 06
In an astonishing change to established academic standards, the Global Logicians Society, with worldwide membership, today sanctioned the inclusion of The Logic of Coercion as primary rule of logic acknowledged as valid. As such, says the Cambridge-based academic society, traditional Western Logic, founded on the rules of logic as set forth by Aristotle and honed by such great minds as David Hume, Bertram Russell and Kurt Godel will now be joined with Jihad Logic, or simply Islamic Logic.
Traditionally, the study of logic, encompassing Informal Logic, Formal Logic, and Symbolic Logic, used rules set out through the processes of inference and deduction. Those established principles of validity will now be joined by Islamic Logic, or the Logic of Coercion.
Strictly speaking, there have been two main branches of Logic for making valid observations and conclusions:
Inference - arrives at conclusions obtained from several observations which may lead to true and valid pronouncements if all the components of the argument are themselves true. Testing of these premises can be obtained by further observations. Inductive reasoning is believed to support the conclusions but do not ensure it. An example of such reasoning might go as follows:
A Jihadist is rationally unstable.
Since rationally unstable people are suicidal
A jihadist is suicidal.
Deduction - conclusions of valid deductive reasoning are always true if the premises are true. A deduction is a sequence of statements such that each statement can be derived from the preceding one. An example of such reasoning might go as follows:
Alli is a jihadist
Alli is suicidal
Therefore Jihadists are suicidal.
Coercion - arguments based on coercion can be true if the forcefulness of the coercive means is strong enough to over-ride intuition and to present itself as a valid threat to the life and limb. This has lately been seen to hold a stronger argument that either the deductive or the inferential analyses. An example of such reasoning might go as follows:
Muslims do not kill people.
If you insult a Muslim by calling him a killer
then the Muslim must kill you so you cannot make false statements about him or his religion.
"What we're dealing with here is real life, whereas before [with purely inductive or deductive logic] we were only concerned with abstract proofs and syllogisms," explains current Global Logicians Society President and Chair of the Wertz School of Logic and Philosophy, Dr. Arnold Levits. "We really wish we wouldn't have do make these changes, but we have no choice. The "logic of our time" or Islamic Logic, has forced us to acknowledge these arguments as valid, and no one has had the courage to step forward to dispel the binding hold it has over us. We've never had "Logic Wars" in the past and there shouldn't be any need to start something like that now. We feel the very concept of challenging this new branch of logic is downright dangerous and therefore must be avoided. Given the dire consequences, such as injury or death, we see no other choice but to cave in and sanction this line of thinking. What else would you have us do?"
Historically, the Islamic world has been a very important contributor to various branches of science throughout history. Some of these include: Mathematics Astronomy Medicine Chemistry
"We're not just talking about camel jockeys and ragheads with bombs under their turbans," says Dr. Levits. "We're talking truly great minds contributing to the development of legitimate science. How are we to know if this latest gift of logic isn't another brilliant contribution to the development of Western Civilization?"
Dr. Ralph Bernard, Chair of The Lounge at MIT adds, "This new branch of logic might even find its way into computing. Can you imagine the application of coercive logic when a Windows operating system or a in-built Windows program attempts to dominate a non-Windows application? Something like this could have rendered the Bill Gates-led domination of the computer world as totally harmless 10 years ago. The logic board could simply be set to destroy any and all programs attempting to steal CPU cycles -- there would have been no monopoly charges against Windows Corporation because the computer could have purged any such efforts by Windows software to take things over. Billions of dollars could have been saved."
Dateline 27 Sept 06
In an astonishing change to established academic standards, the Global Logicians Society, with worldwide membership, today sanctioned the inclusion of The Logic of Coercion as primary rule of logic acknowledged as valid. As such, says the Cambridge-based academic society, traditional Western Logic, founded on the rules of logic as set forth by Aristotle and honed by such great minds as David Hume, Bertram Russell and Kurt Godel will now be joined with Jihad Logic, or simply Islamic Logic.
Traditionally, the study of logic, encompassing Informal Logic, Formal Logic, and Symbolic Logic, used rules set out through the processes of inference and deduction. Those established principles of validity will now be joined by Islamic Logic, or the Logic of Coercion.
Strictly speaking, there have been two main branches of Logic for making valid observations and conclusions:
Inference - arrives at conclusions obtained from several observations which may lead to true and valid pronouncements if all the components of the argument are themselves true. Testing of these premises can be obtained by further observations. Inductive reasoning is believed to support the conclusions but do not ensure it. An example of such reasoning might go as follows:
A Jihadist is rationally unstable.
Since rationally unstable people are suicidal
A jihadist is suicidal.
Deduction - conclusions of valid deductive reasoning are always true if the premises are true. A deduction is a sequence of statements such that each statement can be derived from the preceding one. An example of such reasoning might go as follows:
Alli is a jihadist
Alli is suicidal
Therefore Jihadists are suicidal.
Coercion - arguments based on coercion can be true if the forcefulness of the coercive means is strong enough to over-ride intuition and to present itself as a valid threat to the life and limb. This has lately been seen to hold a stronger argument that either the deductive or the inferential analyses. An example of such reasoning might go as follows:
Muslims do not kill people.
If you insult a Muslim by calling him a killer
then the Muslim must kill you so you cannot make false statements about him or his religion.
"What we're dealing with here is real life, whereas before [with purely inductive or deductive logic] we were only concerned with abstract proofs and syllogisms," explains current Global Logicians Society President and Chair of the Wertz School of Logic and Philosophy, Dr. Arnold Levits. "We really wish we wouldn't have do make these changes, but we have no choice. The "logic of our time" or Islamic Logic, has forced us to acknowledge these arguments as valid, and no one has had the courage to step forward to dispel the binding hold it has over us. We've never had "Logic Wars" in the past and there shouldn't be any need to start something like that now. We feel the very concept of challenging this new branch of logic is downright dangerous and therefore must be avoided. Given the dire consequences, such as injury or death, we see no other choice but to cave in and sanction this line of thinking. What else would you have us do?"
Historically, the Islamic world has been a very important contributor to various branches of science throughout history. Some of these include: Mathematics Astronomy Medicine Chemistry
"We're not just talking about camel jockeys and ragheads with bombs under their turbans," says Dr. Levits. "We're talking truly great minds contributing to the development of legitimate science. How are we to know if this latest gift of logic isn't another brilliant contribution to the development of Western Civilization?"
Dr. Ralph Bernard, Chair of The Lounge at MIT adds, "This new branch of logic might even find its way into computing. Can you imagine the application of coercive logic when a Windows operating system or a in-built Windows program attempts to dominate a non-Windows application? Something like this could have rendered the Bill Gates-led domination of the computer world as totally harmless 10 years ago. The logic board could simply be set to destroy any and all programs attempting to steal CPU cycles -- there would have been no monopoly charges against Windows Corporation because the computer could have purged any such efforts by Windows software to take things over. Billions of dollars could have been saved."
