Errors of Thought

Question:-

What would you say are the main errors in interpretation, reasoning about or judgement of the Quran? Or anything else?

Answer:-

This subject should be a question for a science of “Logic”, but it is much more far ranging than is treated by conventional Logic and is more appropriately a branch of Psychology or connected with it.

The following errors are most common:-

(1) Selectivity. Given a system of ideas or events "S1" consisting of elements “a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h”., if some elements say “a, b, c” are selected to produce a system "S2", this gives a distorted view. Things have meaning within a context of inter-connected things. Taking them out of this falsifies them. The selected set of elements could also be found in another system “S3” which is not under consideration. Taking out an element “c” and considering it by itself, or more generally, because everything has to be interpreted, putting it in another context "S4" containing elements either “d, e, f “ (a subsystem) or “ j, k, l, m” (a different system) causes falsification.

(2) Inadequate or partial knowledge has the same effect. (i) If elements a, b, c, are known then the tendency is to add further elements say j, k, by guess work or speculation to complete a pattern and create a hypothesis, a system “S3”, now consisting of a, b, c, j, k. The elements j, k, are called “predictions” that need verification. (ii) If these are verified then the hypothesis is regarded as proved. However, the system “S3” might still not be complete so that “S3” also constitutes partial knowledge. It could belong to a still greater system “S4”, which itself belongs to a still greater system “S5” and so on. There are degrees of truth in a scale from 0 to 1 which is Absolute Truth. Known ideas are Relatively true. Some things are relatively truer than others. (iii) It is better to speak of a true system “S” as consisting of elements “a, b, c, d,…..x”, where x stands for any number of unknown elements. The greater the number of these that are known the greater is the probability of Truth. (iv) If an element is not verified, then the hypothesis is rejected. But it is still possible to create another hypothesis to explain why it has not been found. Some other factor might be hiding or obstructing it. (v) A system of ideas is valid only for the elements that are included in it and not for the experiences or the realities to which they refer.

(3) Bias, Prejudices, Injustice, One-sidedness, double standards. This is also connected with Selectivity and Partial Knowledge. (a) Some people find it impossible to use the same scale or criteria to judge all similar cases. (b) Some people try to find or invent inappropriate means of distinction or of ignoring similarity. (c) Most things have advantages as well as disadvantages depending on the use or relationship they have with other things. There are both good and evil aspects and one has to make judgements as to whether the good outweighs the evil or how this can be done. This varies with circumstances, purposes and the things to which it applies. But ignoring one or the other aspect or giving it less or more value distorts the judgement.

The reason for these biases is attachment or self-identification with one side at the expense of others. In general, it is the strength of likes and dislikes, desires and fears, greed and abhorrence that produce proportional emphasis and exaggeration of some aspects and suppression of other aspects. This depends, like other things, on a combination of inherent predispositions, experiences, cultural conditioning, education and habits created by sustained efforts.

(4) Subject or Sphere. An idea is understood within the correct Framework of Reference or Conceptual System to which it belongs. An idea taken outside its framework becomes falsified. One cannot understand a scientific statement as a political, economic or religious one or one in poetry, and these cannot be understood in each others frameworks. The Quran is a book in religious and not one of literature or science etc. and has its own Conceptual system.

There are errors due to failure to distinguish between what is relevant or irrelevant resulting in substitution, distraction or diversion. This is often used deliberately in arguments, especially in Politics. Given a system “S1” under discussion, this error fails to discriminate between the elements it includes, e.g. “a, b, c, d”, those that belong to associated systems such as “S2”, “S3” etc. and those that might be accidentally or remotely connected such as “K1”. There is a tendency for thoughts and discussions to stray from values to facts, from ideas to persons, from ideologies to communities or vice versa, and by association from subject to subject while at the same time ignoring elements that truly belong to system or affect it directly.

(5) Confusing something with something else or mistaking it for something it is not, and then applying the same criteria to it as to the other. If a system "S1" consists of elements a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. and another system "S2" consists of elements a, c, f, k, l. then because they share the elements a, c, f, then it is falsely supposed that "S1" is the same as "S2"

(6) Choosing one out of several alternatives owing to preference alone. If an effect "E1" can be obtained by the combination of factors "A1" or by another combination of factors "A2" or "A3" then given the occurrence of "E1" is no proof that the cause is "A1". If a combination of factors "A1" produces effects "E1", "E2" and "E3", then there is no justification emphasising "E1" and ignoring "E2" and "E3" unless one also knows the conditions "C" which determine these different effects.

(7) We receive raw data through our senses and we process this by comparison, association, analysis and synthesis. This ability depends on the ability to see differences and similarities. The capacity for this varies between people. Some people see some things that are seen as different by others as being similar or even identical while others are unable to see the similarities between things that others see. This affects how people systematise and understand their experiences. What for instance is the relationship between the following numbers:-

0, 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63. Or what should be the next number in the following sequence 0, 1, 5, 14, 30, 55, ?

Suppose we have a class "C1" containing members c1, c2, c3, c4...etc. They all have something in common but they are also different. Then if something is true about c1, it is not necessarily true of c3, nor is it necessarily untrue of c2. And if it is or is not that does not necessarily apply to c3. For instance, not all human beings or cats are the same. It is necessary to examine all members and possibly define sub-classes. This sub-class might also be a sub-class of some other class “C2”. For instance, the same characteristics that are found in members of one class can be found in members of another class. We can, therefore, create a class “C3” of things having those characteristics that overlap the other classes without containing them.

(8) The failure to distinguish between verbal descriptions, experiences and reality. We start with experiences and we use these to try to understand the nature of real existence and we use words to communicate experiences with others. However, we have three levels of functioning:- (a) The sub-rational level consisting of conditioned reflexes that we share with animals where experiences are recorded and channel reactions to stimuli. (b) The rational level which allows us to process the data of experience. (c) The super-rational level of consciousness which requires awareness and the self-consistency of behaviour, the system of experiences and the organic nature of the person, which we can call the Personal Reality. These have been distinguished as the physical, mental and spiritual levels though they interact to various degrees.

There are three psychological systems:- (a) The processes of direct interactions with our environment and the organic processes within ourselves. (b) The record of experiences that have three aspect, thought, feeling and action. (c) The Lingual system that depends on learned symbols. But language can be used in three ways corresponding to the levels of functioning. A distinction has to be made between (i) the form of words, (ii) the meaning (iii) the significance. In many or most cases there is a fixation to the form of words. Stimuli simply arouse conditioned reflexes with out the involvement of the rational faculty. Slogans work that way. The second rational stage that examines the meanings of words by relating them to real experiences takes place much more rarely than is supposed. The third higher stage requires the words to produce awareness by relating them to Personal Reality. People have a vague awareness of this to various degrees, but the “louder” noise of distracting experiences that are the result of external events and the intensity of attention, drowns them out.

(9) Judgements based on false assumptions, expectations, unsupported speculations taken as truths, wishful thinking, rationalisation of desires and impulses; mistaking “what is” for “what can be” or “what should be”, or any of these for the other. The frequency of particular types of experiences or activities tends to create habits of reaction and thought. There is also a tendency to form patterns and to extrapolate from these. For example, the fact that the sun has risen millions of times leads to the expectation that it will rise again tomorrow – the greater the number of times this happens the greater is the expectation and assumed probability that it will happen. On the other hand, there are many interacting processes and the events have cycles. The probability that the sun will rise again may be decreasing the greater the number of times it rises. Indeed, the whole idea of the sun rising is based on the movement of the earth with respect to the sun, and is only a dependent and relative idea or experience that cannot be a subject of argument by itself.

Places and times can be identified by their features and distinguished from others by the frequency with which certain events happen there. But these change, though often so gradually that they seem to have a degree of persistence for a time. This also applies to cultures and systems of ideas. But the particular is not the general though it is often mistaken for it. This tendency to form habits is reinforced consciously or sub-consciously, by the media of communication, politicians, spin doctors, publicity agents, advertisers and propagandists to create a web of illusions that forms a blanket over reality and obscures it to various degrees, disabling the normal faculties for perception, motivation and thought.

The result is that all present and future experiences tend to be interpreted by means of past experiences, thereby trapping people in a vicious circle. Growth and development that requires consciousness of new experience, therefore, requires the destruction of this vicious circle and regeneration. That is the function of death and birth of new generations and evolutions in thought and renewal of Religion by reformulation.

(10) Logical arguments are verbal premises that are constructed from certain terms and connections between them. The conclusion follows necessarily from them. We can reduce arguments to triads, 3 terms each in 3 statements. e.g.

(i) Because "A is B" (ii) and "B is C" (iii) Therefore, "A is C"

(i) Men are mortal (ii) Socrates is a man (iii) Socrates is mortal.

Note that:-

(a) The argument depends on how the terms are defined. The definitions might not correspond to any reality at all. What do we mean by "man", "is" and "mortal". What is the relationship of man to mortal? The arguments assume certain Axioms which are rules governing it. Some are described as follows: “A is A”, “Either A or not-A”, “not both A and not-A”. The implication is that the terms denoted by “A” are always precise and constant. But this does not correspond to experience or realities. Things are in constant change and there are degrees between white and black, and our experiences and views of things also change according to context of circumstances. There are also a number of different kinds of real relationship between things apart from similarities of characteristics by which classes are defined.

Is a human being always the same showing the same characteristics in all circumstances? Is "is" the only possible relationship? Does "is" mean identical with, a member of a class, or related to? If it is a class is it an organic one or a group of things or a concept constructed out of common elements? And which elements define that class? Do people have sufficient discrimination to distinguish between elements? Are the terms absolute or are there degrees and variations and are they always the same? These things require either empirical investigation or agreements among a set of people or community that must also be defined.

(b) If the definition of man includes being mortal then we have already assumed what comes out in the conclusion and argument is not a real argument but trivial. We cannot get anything out of it that is not already there. If mortality is not in the definition of man then we must determine whether Socrates is mortal or not by empirical investigation and not logical argument. if we find someone who is not mortal then we must invent another name than "man" for the class of immortals.

(c) If the conclusion is to be true then the premises are assumed to be true. They will have to be established as true by a previous argument which requires a previous argument and ultimately the truth will depend on experience, on observation. Many seemingly logical arguments are vicious circles in that they depend on premises that are merely inferences from a series of arguments that start with premises that are inferences, e.g. A > B > C > D > A. In other words we can invent premises or make certain assumptions and base a whole system of ideas that is self-consistent. We can call this an “Illusionary System”. Many systems of ideas are like this. In fact, it can be argued that Determinism is an assumption in Science that re-appears in the conclusions. All purely logical arguments are vicious circles. For instance, Newton’s Laws of motion on which classical science depends, has the assumption that motions will continue unchanged in direction or speed until a force acts to change this. But how can you prove that there is a force. The force is measured by the change in motion. This is obviously a vicious circle. It is based on a psychological law that we do not notice anything that is uniform, but that a stimulus, a change is required for us to become conscious. Knowledge requires a relationship B between A and C. But “relativity” itself is recognised by relation to some thing. We need to start with an assumption that transcends relativity, namely an Absolute. We can only measure relative changes with respect to something that is constant that underlies existence and a centre of constancy within ourselves that is also identified with that universal Constant.. If these changes then we have chaos and nothing can be recognised.

(d) We do not, however, simply see things with our senses. We have to process the data - to interpret it by analysis, relating annd synthesis. We need intelligence, perception and insight. We need this even to construct an argument or to understand and see its validity. Experiences may not correspond to reality or refer only to a portion of it. These experiences must themselves be true to reality, fall harmoniously, without contradictions into the self-consistent system of all inner and outer experiences, allowing adjustment to reality. This is proved when they are beneficial and developmental. An experience may, however, fall into a self-consistent system of experiences which is itself only a small part of total experiences. A person or a community may have several such systems or “Experiential Complexes” which may overlap to different degrees or be mutually exclusive or be connected with each other through another complex. These are to be distinguished from “Ideological Complexes” of which there are also several.

(e) The argument depends on human motives. We can choose any terms we like and understand or define them in any way we like and we can choose any premises we like in order to reach the conclusion we want. Arguments are, therefore, good for reaching pre-selected goals and solving problems rather than obtaining knowledge. Argumentation is an activity that is either automatic or creative, while knowledge requires receptivity. In order to understand the Quran one needs to know what its purpose is. This is ignored by critics.

(f) The purpose of arguments like any other verbal exchange is communication. Experiences must be encoded in words, transmitted and received and then decoded to produce experiences. This can only happen if words have the same meaning for sender and recipient. This requires that the set of words are associated with the same set of experiences. And this requires a common culture and environment and common goals and activities. It also requires a common framework of reference within which experiences are interpreted and organised. Science is understood by those who have undergone the appropriate discipline, making appropriate efforts with appropriate text books and teachers, acquired the appropriate attitudes and motives and learnt the language of science, its conceptual system, through correct activities within the appropriate environment of the laboratory or field. The same is the case with any other subject and this includes Islam..

(g) As the argument is verbal, it remains valid if we put in nonsense words:-

(i) gobledegook is nanapoof. (ii) dablok is gobledegook. (iii) Therefore, dablok is nanapoof.

Many arguments are just like that because the words that are being used have unknown or vague meanings, are mere slogans to which people react by conditioned reflexes, do not refer to any experience or anything real or are understood differently by different people.

Logic should really be a science dealing with correct thinking and all the sources of errors in thought and as such it should be a part of Psychology or associated with it.

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