The subject of logic has been under discussion for at least three thousand years without any clean breakthrough of real use to those who work with data.

LOGIC means the subject of reasoning. Some in ages past have sought to label it a science. But that can be discarded as pretense and pompousness.

If there were such a “science” men would be able to think. And they can’t.

The term itself is utterly forbidding. If you were to read a text on logic you would go quite mad trying to figure it out, much less learn how to think.

Yet logic or the ability to reason is vital to an organizer or administrator. If he cannot think clearly he will not be able to reach the conclusions vital to make correct decisions.

Many agencies, governments, societies, groups, capitalize upon this lack of logic and have for a very long time. For the bulk of the last 2,000 years the main western educator — the Church — worked on the theory that Man should be kept ignorant. A population that is unable to think or reason can be manipulated easily by falsehoods and wretched causes.

Thus logic has not been a supported subject, rather the opposite.

Even western schools today seek to convince students they should study geometry as “that is the way they think.” And of course it isn’t.

The administrator, the manager, the artisan and the clerk each have a considerable use for logic. If they cannot reason they make costly and time-consuming errors and can send the entire organization into chaos and oblivion.

Their stuff in trade are data and situations. Unless they can observe and think their way through, they can reach wrong conclusions and take incorrect actions.

Modern Man thinks mathematics can serve him for logic and most of his situations go utterly adrift because of this touching and misplaced confidence. The complexity of human problems and the vast number of factors involved make mathematics utterly inadequate.

Computers are at best only servomechanisms (crutches) to the mind. Yet the chromium-plated civilization today has a childish faith in them. It depends on who asks the questions and who reads the computer’s answers whether they are of any use or not. And even then their answers are often madhouse silly.

Computers can’t think because the rules of live logic aren’t fully known to Man and computer builders. One false datum fed into a computer gives one a completely wrong answer.

If people on management and work lines do not know logic the organization can go adrift and require a fabulous amount of genius to hold it together and keep it running.

Whole civilizations vanish because of lack of logic in its rulers, leaders and people.

So this is a very important subject.

I have found a way now to unlock this subject. This is a breakthrough which is no small win. If by it a formidable and almost impossible subject can be reduced to simplicity then correct answers to situations can be far more frequent and an organization or a civilization far more effective.

The breakthrough is a simple one.

BY ESTABLISHING THE WAYS IN WHICH THINGS BECOME ILLOGICAL ONE CAN THEN ESTABLISH WHAT IS LOGIC.

In other words, if one has a grasp of what makes things illogical or irrational (or crazy, if you please) it is then possible to conceive of what makes things logical.

There are 5 primary ways for a relay of information or a situation to become illogical.

1. Omit a fact.

2. Change sequence of events.

3. Drop out time.

4. Add a falsehood.

5. Alter importance.

These are the basic things which cause one to have an incorrect idea of a situation.

Example: “He went to see a communist and left at 3:00 A.M.” The omitted facts are that he went with 30 other people and that it was a party. By omitting the fact one alters the importance. This omission makes it look like “he” is closely connected to communism! When he isn’t.

Example: “The ship left the dock and was loaded.” Plainly made crazy by altering sequence of events.

Example: “The whole country is torn by riots” which would discourage visiting it in 1970 if one didn’t know the report date of 1919.

Example: “He kept skunks for pets” which as an added falsehood makes a man look odd if not crazy.

Example: “It was an order” when in fact it was only a suggestion, which of course shifts the importance.

There are hundreds of ways these 5 mishandlings of data can then give one a completely false picture.

When basing actions or orders on data which contains one of the above, one then makes a mistake.

REASON DEPENDS ON DATA.

WHEN DATA IS FAULTY (as above) THE ANSWER WILL BE WRONG AND LOOKED UPON AS UNREASONABLE.

There are a vast number of combinations of these 5 data. More than one (or all 5) may be present in the same report.

Observation and its communication may contain one of these 5.

If so, then any effort to handle the situation will be ineffective in correcting or handling it.

If any body of data is given the above 5 tests, it is often exposed as an invitation to acting illogically.

To achieve a logical answer one must have logical data.

Any body of data which contains one or more of the above faults can lead one into illogical conclusions.

The basis of an unreasonable or unworkable order is a conclusion which is made illogical by possessing one or more of the above faults.

Therefore logic must have several conditions:

1. All relevant facts must be known.

2. Events must be in actual sequence.

3. Time must be properly noted.

4. The data must be factual, which is to say true or valid.

5. Relative importances amongst the data must be recognized by comparing the facts with what one is seeking to accomplish or solve.

One can always know something about anything.

It is a wise man who, confronted with conflicting data, realizes that he knows at least one thing - that he doesn’t know.

Grasping that, he can then take action to find out.

If he evaluates the data he does find out against the five things above, he can clarify the situation. Then he can reach a logical conclusion.

It is necessary to work out your own examples of the 5 violations of logic.

By doing so, you will have gained skill in sorting out the data of a situation.

When you can sort out data and become skilled in it, you will become very difficult to fool and you will have taken the first vital step in grasping a correct estimate of any situation.