How to Build a Logic
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Logical Mind |
"Reasoning is as natural and familiar a process as breathing but it is also a skill in which indefinite improvement is possible for anybody who is not a genius"
For a best logical approach, the first step is to become aware of the problem. The second is to define and analyze it, establishing its parameters. The third step it to approach it rationally from different angles, considering a number of options and various working hypotheses for its solution. And the last step is to select a solution and verify its effectiveness.
Logical reasoning is something you will need to employ just about every day of your life. The more logical you are, the easier problems become, and the swifter and more painless their solutions. What you have learned of mathematical reasoning can easily be transferred to logical reasoning. They both work the same way, except that in logic, numbers are involved much less often, and when they are, they are not of such central importance.
A tough mathematical mind will make you intellectually potent in virtually all areas of analysis. The analysis of any problem and the separation of fact from fallacy is the key to solving any logical problem. And you don't have to know mathematics to have a mathematical mind. You can solve the same with your Logical approach too.
In everyday life, when you are confronted with a problem involving mathematics or containing logical or mathematical elements, move its factors around into a good sequential order much like the way that problems are described in an elementary math text. There are many ways to do this, so find one that works best for you. You might try it first in chronological order. If the problem doesn't lend itself to time framing. though, you might simply start with rearranging its components from the general to the more specific. This method often works, because problems typically flow that way.
Don't think consciously about dealing with logic the way you used to think about mathematics as a difficult subject that must be learned. Instead, practice dealing with it more subjectively in the beginning, as a way to figure out thing and situations that are relevant to your own daily life. Just as your feelings should change about mathematics, they should change about logic.
The point is, of course, that you can bring an objective logic to all sorts of questions, and it works equally well. If there is sufficient data in your premises, then your conclusion will be a valid one. Not only detectives in mysteries, but also computers work by deductive logic. If such and such is true, then this must be the conclusion.
If you are having trouble with a logic problem, go back through it and see if you are taking anything for granted. Making assumptions is one of the places where you can get into trouble, not just in logic problems, but also in life. If you can learn to stop doing that, it will stand you in good stead in both your professional and personal lives.
