Ep: 108 Steven Pinker’s ”Rationality”Chapter 3 ”Logic and Critical Thinking” - reflections and analysis.
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The Difference Between if in English and if in Logic
When the antecedent of a conditional is known to be false, we're tempted to say that the conditional was moot or irrelevant. Like if you drink turnip juice, you will stay awake, which would be logically true if you never drank turnip juice. In other words, in cases where you don't have a p, the rule is still assumed to work. It still assumed to be true. So yes, this is the difference between formal logic, which can ignore the meanings of everything just about and natural language like english, which is there to communicate meanings. But pinker again goes in to using another political example, this time about a vice presidential candidate, sarah palon
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