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humans and logic

Rory Baker roryking at aol.com
Sun Jun 17 04:33:02 EDT 2001 
Humans are naturally illogical. It was illogical to raise a point that so many
people could argue against. It is illogical for me to waste my time pointing
out flaws in an argument that may no longer exist in about a year. But I do it
anyway, because part of myself (the illogical part) compells me to do this.
Yeah, binary *might* be a good mathmatical base to work upon, but there will
always be some dude in the back that won't switch. People have machines to
convert number systems and languages and all this nice stuff so that people
aren't spending days just trying to say 'hi' to one another. There is no
'ideal' operating system, no 'ideal' language, no 'ideal number system. Even
the most "logical" concepts of human thought are flawed. Take, for example, the
concept of negative numbers. Except for financial cases where negative numbers
indicate debt, or graphing, where negative numbers indicate position, negative
numbers have no relavance in a positive universe. I cannot run negative miles.
I cannot go to McDonalds and order the McNegative Cheeseburger with a side of
negitavesize fries, and by paying for this negative meal with negative money,
gain positive money. Then there is the question of dividing by zero. How much
of nothing can you fit in to 1? How much nothing can you cram in to nothing? To
paraphrase "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" (Douglas Adams), you could,
for example, have both a cup of tea and no tea at the same time. In one hand,
you have tea, and in the other, you have no tea. To conclude, everybody is
kinda right and kinda wrong on this one. Then again, maybe it's just me. I
don't know. Anyone want to help me out? Anyone?
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