# Defense against "Fuzzy Logic" concept?



## arielann81 (Dec 21, 2011)

Hello PB,

I had a debate over the existence of God with an atheist co-worker the other day and his closing argument against my logic was called "fuzzy logic." I'm curious to see if any of you have come across this? Here is the back story:

So I've been a busy little Calvinist recently and haven't been on the boards due to personal study or opportunities God has brought my way. This opportunity originated on my personal Facebook of all places. I had been told a simple method of establishing the existence of God through a logical statement answering where we come from in three simple statements. This was an apologetic that seemed rather effective so I posted the three statements on my Facebook and a brief explanation. The statements were: We are either supernatural, self made, or made by the supernatural. Supernatural meaning we have the power of being within ourselves, the second breaking the law of non-contradiction which leaves the third: being made by the supernatural.

I'm in a unique position where I work because there are only 6 of us in a room and between calls we are allowed to play games or surf the web etc. We all have instant messenger up and have a group chat we use to talk but most are checking Facebook as well or at least online. When I posted on a break one of my co-workers saw this and replied trying to debunk my logic. We had an interchange and I forwarded a link to an article titled: The Christian Worldview, the Atheist Worldview, and Logic from the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry website. After reading this he proceeded to give an argument for "fuzzy logic." 

I had never heard of this term before and although I mentioned that he was basically trying to debunk logic at this point he countered that he wasn't trying to debunk logic but add to it and that logicians don't have it all figured out yet..lol. I told him I would look into it. 

Have any of you encountered this before? Also, we are still on friendly terms. He sits right next to me so I knew at some point I would have to grant him that I wasn't trying to pick on him but he was responding to my personal Facebook after all. All this happened while sitting next to each other without actually speaking to one another. It was rather strange. In the end I spoke to him out loud and that's when he brought up the fuzzy logic where I allowed it to end for the day.

He also said something to the effect of well I will still believe what I believe and so will you and I of course said that was the quintessential Postmodernist remark and laughed. He said yes, since it doesn't originate from anywhere and it was the end of the day so we went home. Since then however he has told me I was awesome... in relation to work stuff.. so apparently I didn't push him away too far.

Still working on the best way to proceed with Apologetics after the existence of God is established. Thought I would share with you all.


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## rbcbob (Dec 21, 2011)

I believe that he is implying that your position yields only an approximate truth or an imprecise conclusion. Not necessarily false but not mathematically certain. It (fuzzy logic) is of little philosophical value.


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## athanatos (Dec 21, 2011)

Seems irrelevant to the existence of God, unless he wants to bring in dialetheism, albeit sneakily. Dialetheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


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## Christoffer (Dec 21, 2011)

Logic is absolute and a presupposition for any meaningful statement. If you got an argument for fuzzy logic, then that argument presupposed classical logic.

"I believe in fuzzy logic" presupposes that for example "believe" cannot mean "to not believe". Or else the statement is unintelligible even to the one who says it.


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## arielann81 (Dec 21, 2011)

Good points. In order to argue another other point he would still have to use the classical forms of logic which borrow from the Christian worldview. 

I'm working on my life being the best apologetic and bringing arguments started in the philosophical arena to the social sphere where such truth is applied. I was watching Ravi Zacharias the other day and found his arguments compelling for this train of thought. He made it simple when he said in any well balanced answer he tries to provide an argument, a story, and an application. Without the philosophical argument or sound doctrine the story lacks strength, but without a story the argument is dry. Without an application either one will only be an exercise in sharing words that don't translate into anything we can use to change our lives or those of others. That for another thread I suppose.


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## Scott1 (Dec 21, 2011)

arielann81 said:


> I'm working on my life being the best apologetic and bringing arguments started in the philosophical arena to the social sphere where such truth is applied.



Yes, certainly we ought seek to be consistent and we can witness with our life.

Remember, though, that our lives will always be imperfect- and the world, flesh and the devil will always be working to find fault.

Ultimately, it is not about the perfection of your life.

It is about Jesus.

While we act in ways that are perceived in a negative way, and sometimes hypocritically, by nonbelievers it does not even mean we are behaving in a bad manner. (nonbelievers can hate Christ in you, and righteousness in any form; they can sense being convicted of their sin). Far less is the salvation of the other person is dependent on a believer's perceived perfection.

God may, and perhaps often does, use good conduct as testimony.

But He alone ordains salvation, start to finish.

Just faithfully, carefully share the truth-
and trust God to with that as He pleases.


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## arielann81 (Dec 21, 2011)

Good points and well taken Scott. I suppose it comes back to that tension between God's sovereignty and our responsibility. The more I fall in Love with my savior the more I want to please in him all I do. The more amazed I am by grace the more I want to be used by God to share that with others. Of course God doesn't need me for his purposes in saving someone but it is the greatest privilege he gives us and I want to be a part of it. In other words I don't want to get in his way or miss out on any opportunity. ... Perhaps that is all part of his plan for my sanctification but such things are still such a mystery to me.


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## Craig.Scott (Dec 21, 2011)

It is incredibly hard these days, everyone is a philisophical student thanks to the average folk jumping on the Dawkins bandwagon. But always remember no one, but no one can believe in the Triuine God unless they are born again. Pray and pray for that person, and give them the gospel. May the Lord regenerate, i do not like getting bogged down with the existance of God, they know He's true, they are simply sinners who suppress the truth. By God's grace alone, we would all be the very same.

Proclaim & pray, its the only way.







In Christ


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## Philip (Dec 21, 2011)

Yall are overanalyzing the term. When someone says "you're using fuzzy logic" means "I think there's a problem or equivocation in your reasoning, but I'm not sure quite where it is at the moment." It's along the lines of "it seems to make sense, but it feels wrong."

The only defense against that one is to painstakingly analyze your own logic for errors.


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## jwright82 (Dec 21, 2011)

I know that in the 20th century they developed several different "types" of "logic". This may be one of them. I think Phillip is right though. You may wish to ask him what he means. I learned that it is never wrong to ask someone a question because you don't know what their talking about. If you know what they mean than you can avoid wasting your time on arguing over things that neither one of you is talking about.


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## Unoriginalname (Dec 21, 2011)

jwright82 said:


> I know that in the 20th century they developed several different "types" of "logic".



All of my textbooks relegate fuzzy logic to a more mathematical function dealing with issues of things being somewhat true or somewhat false. The concept is almost similar to probability. I could not see how that could come up in an apologetic discourse since it has very little to do with anything unless you are designing a search engine. I would go with Philip and James and ask what the person means by fuzzy logic.


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## jwright82 (Dec 21, 2011)

Unoriginalname said:


> All of my textbooks relegate fuzzy logic to a more mathematical function dealing with issues of things being somewhat true or somewhat false. The concept is almost similar to probability. I could not see how that could come up in an apologetic discourse since it has very little to do with anything unless you are designing a search engine. I would go with Philip and James and ask what the person means by fuzzy logic.



Thanks for the info.


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## Philip (Dec 21, 2011)

Yeah, unless the person you are dealing with is highly trained in formal logic, I doubt that he's using the term "fuzzy logic" in the technical sense.


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## Unoriginalname (Dec 21, 2011)

P. F. Pugh said:


> Yeah, unless the person you are dealing with is highly trained in formal logic, I doubt that he's using the term "fuzzy logic" in the technical sense.


My point exactly


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## Scott1 (Dec 21, 2011)

arielann81 said:


> I suppose it comes back to that tension between God's sovereignty and our responsibility.


This might be a good topic for a thread, all by itself.


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## athanatos (Dec 23, 2011)

P. F. Pugh said:


> Yeah, unless the person you are dealing with is highly trained in formal logic, I doubt that he's using the term "fuzzy logic" in the technical sense.



Ehh... I am not so sure. There's a lot of pop-novice-skimmed-and-thought-it-was-relevant people. How many people talk about self-actualizing, without knowing what it means? How many people think they know what Constantine did for Christianity? How many people think they know what schizophrenia is? He probably heard it somewhere, and pragmatically added it into his vocabulary to simply say "There's a third option so we can both be right and I don't have to give up what I believe"


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## Tim (Dec 23, 2011)

Unoriginalname said:


> jwright82 said:
> 
> 
> > I know that in the 20th century they developed several different "types" of "logic".
> ...



Yes, that was the fuzzy logic that came to my mind. To expand on the somewhat true/somewhat false concept, this might be applied to things like young/old or cold/hot. 

But, you are not using these sorts of statements.


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## Philip (Dec 23, 2011)

athanatos said:


> He probably heard it somewhere, and pragmatically added it into his vocabulary to simply say "There's a third option so we can both be right and I don't have to give up what I believe"



As I said, the way I've heard this one used in pop philosophy refers to logic which one is subjectively unsure of, even if one can find no objective problems with it at the moment.


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