> I can't stop myself from going over quota.
>
> When people talk about humans not being "logical," does that refer only to
the formal or informal use of
> Aristotelian logic or similar (mathematics, etc.)? If so, the problem may
not be that people aren't logical
> as much as being unable to abstract very well. After all, such logic
involves a very abstract picture in our > heads, one that doesn't correspond
to the messy complications of the reality that exists independent of
> our individual perceptions of it. Empirical reality doesn't seem to fit
into logical either/or type categories. > Also, such logic isn't exactly
about "truth," since good logical argument can be based on false premises.
In his book _The Language Instinct_, Steven Pinker recounts an episode among some juvenile vervet monkeys: two females got into a wrestling match. One of them screamed. Twenty minutes later, her sister bit the other monkey's sister. A is to B as C is to D.
-- Luke