Riding the wind of rebirth

"Furthermore, the Mohists divided 'cause' into 'major cause' and 'minor cause': minor cause is 'not necessarily present, but not necessarily absent,' equivalent to a necessary condition; major cause is 'necessary to exist, but not necessarily absent,' equivalent to a sufficient and necessary condition."

"It can be said that Mozi had already summarized logic very well more than two thousand years ago, especially his discussion on the principle of sufficient reason, which was two thousand years ahead of the West."

"Only after understanding these four laws of logic can one talk about understanding logic and be able to point out logical flaws in other people's words."

"For example, someone might claim: all monkeys evolved from humans, and golden monkeys are monkeys, therefore golden monkeys evolved from humans. Where is the error in this reasoning? It lies in the fact that the major premise is clearly false, so even if the inference is correct, it cannot prove the conclusion is true. There is no need for anyone to pay serious attention to the process of such reasoning or argumentation."

"For example, a winery owner raved about his own wine. His reasoning was that only three out of every hundred consumers complained about its quality. He said, 'That means 97% of consumers are satisfied with our product, which shows how good our wine is. I suggest you buy our wine often.'"

"Where is the logical fallacy in the factory manager's statement? It lies in the statement that 'the reason is irrelevant to the conclusion.' He used statistical data to arrive at a completely unrelated conclusion. Obviously, the fact that only 3% of consumers complained does not prove the conclusion that 'consumers who did not complain were very satisfied with their products.' Among those people, some might find it troublesome, some might think it's not worth the effort, and some might think, 'I'll just consider it money wasted and not buy it next time...' Anyone with a sense of logic can immediately point out the factory manager's fallacy."

“Online forums are full of debates, and understanding logic is certainly a powerful tool,” Zhou Zhi laughed. “But perhaps everyone should have noticed that those who are clamoring that Chinese people don’t understand logic are actually the ones who understand logic the least, while the Chinese themselves are the ones who understand logic the most.”

"And this logical system was rigorously honed in the process of writing and speaking."

"The process of composing couplets is actually a training process for logic."

"The laws of identity, contradiction, excluded middle, and sufficient reason are all reflected in the training process of couplets."

"Couplets require the same number of characters, tonal contrast, same parts of speech, and opposite meanings. Everyone must abide by this rule and create under the premise of the same rule. This is the embodiment of the law of similarity."

"Words used in antithesis often exhibit opposition, such as water versus fire, rain versus wind, mountain versus sea, and 'to pursue an official career is like a needle digging into the soil, to squander one's family fortune is like water washing away sand.' This is the application of the law of contradiction."

"Similarly, the same words, things, and events cannot appear in the upper and lower lines. If the upper line uses 'rowing oars,' the lower line cannot use 'sailing.' Although different words are used and the parallelism is correct, in terms of the meaning of the words, 'rowing oars' is equivalent to 'sailing,' which does not meet the requirements of the rule of excluded middle."

"The principle of sufficient reason is reflected in the rationality of couplets. The upper and lower lines should have the same tone and the scenes and events should be related. 'The sea is wide enough for fish to leap, and the sky is high enough for birds to fly' describes the vastness of the world and the struggle of all things. 'The sun sets behind the mountains and the Yellow River flows into the sea' together form a desolate and magnificent scene of the frontier wilderness."

“In ancient times, people generally began their education at the age of six. The main tasks of this education were to learn to recognize characters, distinguish pronunciations, and understand meanings. The best way to train them was to learn to write antithetical couplets, which laid a good foundation for their future literary advancement.”

"It can be said that from the later period of the format, the Chinese began to have rigorous logical training, which is why Chinese logic has been able to leave the West behind for two thousand years."

"These are just the basics. When logic is applied to a higher level, one can deliberately use logical paradoxes to achieve unexpected results."

"Let's take the dialogue where I asked my third aunt whether Tiedan was naughty or not as an example. My third aunt seemed to be 'answering a different question,' but she actually wanted to express the point that 'Tiedan is not naughty at all.' However, she did so by deliberately creating a 'logical paradox.' What is this called? This is called 'language art,' which belongs to the category of 'literature.'"

"The same applies to couplets. There's a technique called 'unfeeling couplets,' such as 'a fifth-rank official in a blue robe' paired with 'a six-flavored rehmannia pill.' This is a illogical way of matching couplets, but it can achieve an interesting and humorous effect." "Humor is about using reasonable reasoning to arrive at a clearly absurd result, creating an 'unexpected' situation in the linguistic context, giving people a funny and absurd surprise."

"For example, there's a joke that Gorbachev got into a bad mood one day and switched driving with his driver. They ended up breaking the rules and were pulled over by the police. The police were so shocked that they quickly let them go."

"His colleague asked him if he had encountered some important person. The policeman, still shaken, replied, 'I don't know that important person, but the driver was Gorbachev.'"

"Hahahaha..." This joke made everyone laugh.

Zhou Zhi also laughed and said, "See? This is actually a high-level application of logic. It deliberately makes the conditions insufficient, and then uses reasonable inference to arrive at an obviously absurd result, creating the effect of 'within reason, yet unexpected'."

“The entire Chinese classic *Xiaolin Guangji* uses this technique,” ​​Zhou Zhi said, shrugging. “So how do people feel about those who say ‘China has no logic’?”

"ignorance."

"madness."

Xu Anxin shook her head: "No, they are actually purely bad."

“My cousin is more right.” Zhou Zhi gave Xu Anxin a thumbs up: “They are just stirring up trouble. I don’t think the first person to do it was ignorant of these things. Those who followed the trend can be described as ignorant and stupid. But those who created this kind of public opinion, ignoring the fact that China is two thousand years ahead of the West, are purely evil.”

“That’s nothing,” Li Laosan laughed. “With someone like you, Elbow, their tricks are no match for us. With the country’s GDP growth rate, as long as we keep this up, it won’t be long before we see them go from mocking us to worrying about themselves.”

“Those kinds of people aren’t the most hateful,” Zhou Zhi said. “There are some people in the country who laugh at themselves all day long, but will worry about others in the future. Those are the most hateful people.”

“There are many people like that on Hong Kong Island now,” Li Laosan sighed. “They will regret it soon.”

Li Laosan was referring to the current wave of emigration occurring on Hong Kong Island. Under the influence of the "destruction theory of reunification" deliberately promoted by some forces, a massive wave of emigration has emerged on Hong Kong Island, with 3.5 million people eager to leave the island, the vast majority of whom are middle-class.

This had a huge impact on the Hong Kong stock market and real estate market, which reached a low point last year and only gradually recovered in the second half of this year.

"Ha!" Zhou Zhi laughed: "To be honest, I can't sympathize with these people. As the great man said long ago, 'If it's going to rain, it'll rain; if a mother wants to remarry, she'll remarry. Let them be!'" (End of Chapter)