18.2 Chains Of Reasoning


Lots of ideas are easily phrased as chains, and we often delete internal links and just speak of the ends. "For generations, scientists and philosophers have tried to explain ordinary reasoning in terms of logical principles -- with virtually no success. I suspect this enterprise failed because it was looking in the wrong direction: common sense works so well not because it is an approximation of logic; logic is only a small part of our great accumulation of different, useful ways to chain things together."

(NB: The anti-logic stance adopted here is consistent with lots of psychological literature, and is pursued in remaining sections. Note, though, that it is also a popular connectionist move...)


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