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Well journals are out to make a buck so I'm not too surprised. But yeah, they are expensive. Not exactly a high-margin business though is my understanding. It'll take a few thousand dollars to get your work published, and they'll have firm restrictions on any number of things. Paying extra for other things isn't uncommon either. An extra figure may be $1500, some will let you go a page over for an extra fee, but all that adds up fast.

It's funny because I'm downloading and printing .pdf files anyway, and several journals are online-only these days. I'd probably stop gripping if there was a 'download' everything button for some of these. But I'll download a pdf, print it out and try and read it on the bus on the way home. Then come across something like "details are in supp. file 1a" and .

The class I remember actually was required for both computer science and philosophy degrees, an interesting overlap for me (hence the hook that got me to take it). It was so useful it wasn't funny. The only other class I think I got as much from looking back was the one we had to take for the biology degree which covered project planning, paper-writing, and basic statistics in a biological context.

But yeah, these things get really overlooked. Just having the skill set to critically analyze something, and formulate an argument. Rare skills these days I tells ya.

If you're going to teach logic, the first lesson better be that logic is highly subjective to personal bias, and should never be used in place of facts. A lot of people seem to believe that what they think is logical, and therefore correct, simply because they allow their personal world views color the data they're using to come to their conclusion.

It would be less complicated to count the number of potentially valid arguments in a political debate.

And I took both Intro to Logic, which was ridiculously useful. Focused on modal logic and first-order logic. The stuff that doesn't get much harder than modus ponens. My favorite rule, of course, is psuedo-scotus.

Then I took intermediate logic, which was confusing as hell and not useful at all for day to day stuff. Intro classes are about how formulas work, how to make a well-formed formula, what's logically invalid, valid, and sound. Etc.

Intermediate logic was using logic to prove stuff... about logic. It was ridiculously hard to do, but so ludicrously simple to understand when you watched the professor go through a proof (which were usually 40-80 premises long--it was hell).

Fortunately, a basic understanding of first-order and modal logic will be useful for everyone, and it's relatively simple (if you are able of thinking at all rational, meaning you aren't certain posters we will not name for fear of their return). The higher stuff is only useful if you actually want to work with higher order systems and such, and so it can go f*** itself.

[EDIT]


Yeah, logic is just about the form of arguments.

Edited, Apr 23rd 2012 5:07pm by idiggory

Or that.

You have a scantly clad female servant who finds beer for you to consume?

Yes, yes, I see possibilities here.

Your black magic won't work on me. I've been listening to pony songs for the past six hours straight.

Singing it's the only thing blocking out the exit interview I had to do for my government loans, atm. It's an odd feeling, knowing that I'm going to spend the rest of my life in debt.

Honestly, a first-year college level understanding of logic, rhetoric, and philosophy should be required by the time you enter into the workplace. I'm constantly baffled by how irritatingly stupid some of my peers (and some of my bosses) are.

The main problem is that people just don't give a sh*t about themselves; they are about being spoon-fed the best way to do everything and have the easy road all the time, the entire time not worrying about themselves as humans. They don't worry about their health unless there's something negative impacting their life or their ability to get laid, they don't worry about their ignorance in the world around them unless it impacts their ability to make money, and they don't worry about their lack of culture because all of their friends are just as uncouth as they are.

I told someone at work the other day that I enjoyed going to the symphony and opera, and they asked if I was gay; apparently being intelligent, well-dressed, and interested in classical works makes a guy gay.

I apologized and asked if his girlfriend wanted to go to the symphony as my date, because obviously if I'm gay there's no risk in me getting involved with her.

Seriously Theo!? You live in Seattle right? And someone figured you were gay because you like the symphony and opera? Seattle is like the US capital for those things isn't it?

That explains it with the age range...

Ahem.

I'm generally a fan of Opera. It definitely has its quirks, but they all make perfect sense when you think about why opera formed. It generally deals with far more, well, epic content than other media forms of its day were capable of addressing. The style of music itself is such that it can reach a huge audience in a time before they really understood acoustics. It took a long time for drama to reemerge in Europe, so the balet and opera were the only ways to tell a story. Until they gained a better understanding of how to transmit the spoken word to an audience, your only options were media forms that involved, well, bellowing or dance.

Same reason why symphonies were popular. Except that there's a huge difference between the past and now--we have access to music in our everyday life. That wasn't an aspect of the day. So the symphony was far more grandiose than we think of it.

All three were also, often, religious experiences. Which makes them even more important when discussing a world that was spiritually homogeneous. That's also why the most famous Western dramas are primarily secular in nature. Shakespeare, for instance, was writing as a patron of the Tudors.

Watching Rock Me Amadeus makes me think of the opera... With the hair and stuff.

Being asked if you're gay because you enjoy fine music is soooooo gay..... (/hides Antagnone and Paganini recordings)

If we as a society made any single change to our education system in order to truly, really improve the future of our country, logic 101 in high school would be it. Yes, that's my opinion =P

So you guys remember I linked the dragon penis dildos? This is infinitely more creepy OBVIOUSLY NSFW

What exactly does Logic 101 teach?

Go go wikipedia!

Logic (from the Greek λογική logikē)[1] is the philosophical study of valid reasoning.[2] Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science. It examines general forms which arguments may take, which forms are valid, and which are fallacies. In philosophy, the study of logic is applied in most major areas: metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and ethics. In mathematics, it is the study of valid inferences within some formal language.[3] Logic is also studied in argumentation theory.[4]

Logic was studied in several ancient civilizations, including India,[5] China[6] and Greece. In the West, logic was established as a formal discipline by Aristotle, who gave it a fundamental place in philosophy. The study of logic was part of the classical trivium, which also included grammar and rhetoric.

So... valid reasoning. That's Logic 101? You guys have classes for that?

I need to teach myself grammar too, now that you mention it. My school is weird. If you are a Journalism major, there is a grammar class that is required, and has a reputation of being pretty difficult. If you are an English major, you get off scott free. This makes no sense to me. The majority of English majors are either going to become teachers or writers, so I would think that knowing grammar would be important. We don't even have a grammar class in the department, let alone a requirement to take it. It's weird. I find myself lucky in that I have a good instinct for proper grammar usage, probably due to my love of reading. But as far as actual rules go? I can think of "I before E except after C" and that's about it. Oh, and that you aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, and that's one I have trouble with.

Maybe I'm not getting the full picture here, but why would a separate class be necessary? Don't you learn how to use valid reasoning in your other classes?

Scientific Method is as close as most non-advanced-class students get according the the information I've seen. It's a travesty.

I don't know, I feel there's too much focus on the vocals. Not that vocals are bad, I just think it sounds better when the vocals blend in with the rest of the music. Like this:



What I mean is that the vocals become an instrument and adds to the harmony of the entire piece. Opera has a tendency to place vocals above the music and use it to create disharmony. I hate disharmony in music.

Edited, Apr 24th 2012 10:24pm by Mazra

Yeah, Magic Flute is the only opera I've actually seen live. It seems to the most commonly known opera, but I do love it. That song in particular. I wish I could sing like that with that range.