#Fooling Ourselves into #Foolish #Foolishness: #LogicalFallacies (#Logic #Fallacy #Fault #Fail #Failing #Fool #Fallacious)

We all fool ourselves (with fallacies like "seeing is believing") ... into thinking 'we "know" things' (like 'why we do what we do,' 'why various things happen in the world,' 'the reasons-why others do the things they do (as if it actually affects us)' etc.)

The latest big 'false importance' I think-of is President Donald Trump and the looming Mueller Report (Special-Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the President's campaign's possible ... hack-job on the voting-system through collusion with Russian intelligence? or was it The One-Armed Man in collusion with Bigfoot the Yeti & the Loch Ness Monster & the Easter Bunny & Santa Claus & ...)

I guess I'm wondering 'why people want to know such things': Do they think they can do anything about it? I guess there's a 'logical fallacy' packaged with the 'popular saying' (meme?) that "Knowledge is Power"—people innocently think that 'knowing something-is-wrong gives them the authority & ability to do-something-about-it.'

before I 'go off in a rant,' let's look at the pieces of "Fools" and their "Logical Fallacies":


The word “Fool” is built on ancient words that mean “to Blow, Swell (like the Leather |Bag of a Blacksmith's |Bellows ... it's probably 'a long walk' from there to "the |Joker in the |King's |Courtroom" and/or "the Idiot" we use the word-for today ...)." 
”The word “Logic” is built on ancient words that mean “Reason, |Idea, Word” (|Logos). 
The word “Fallacy” is built on ancient words that mean “|Deceive” (#Fail). 
The word “Fail” is built on ancient words that mean “to |Stumble, Stagger, bring- or throw |Down, Fall.”



  • Popular 'Logical Fallacies' include:
  • Post Hoc (ergo Propter Hoc): 'After This therefore Because-Of This'—people's natural brains are easily led to think that–because something happened after something else (I said the magic words, and the sun rose; I fell asleep, and the sun went down)–the first thing caused the second thing.
  • The Monte Carlo Fallacy (or Gambler's Fallacy) - the idea that 'more negative outcomes raise the probability of a positive outcome' (the way that–if the roulette-wheel lands on black 99 times in a row–you feel like 'it is due to land on red' sooner ... although we know its chances of landing on red remain exactly 50/50).
  • Ad Hominem (attacking the arguer instead of the argument), frequently coupled with Argument from Authority (Appeal to Authority, Argumentum ad Verecundium) - I see these frequently; as I'm a bit of a 'Christian Apologist' (frequently defending Christianity's logical goodness against 'people who hate it for its fantasy-filled literature), and Christianity's opponents frequently posit arguments like "Why believe in an all-powerful being when 'the world' (which such a being could make 'all good') is so bad?"
  • ... etc.

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