Spock Logic
Spock Logic
It is quite obvious that Spock doesn’t know any logic. He clearly knows a lot of science, but he is ignorant of the science of logic. Why do I say this? Two things: (a) he doesn’t know what “logic” means, and (b) he never refers to anything in the logical canon. He is deficient in logical education. I don’t know about other Vulcans—though I suspect the worst—but Spock himself is a logical ignoramus. Even humans know more logic than Spock! Even Dr. McCoy probably knows more! (You didn’t see that coming.) When Spock talks about logic, he clearly means “scientific”: fact-based, methodically reasoned, not driven by emotion, objective. The scientific method and attitude—not superstition, wishful thinking, prejudice, stock response. On all occasions on which other crew members think they have undermined Spock’s “logical” approach, they are grievously in error, because rational thought can never be in error—it is always preferable to its opposite (irrational thought). There is nothing wrong with Spock’s cognitive functioning, which is not to say there is nothing wrong with him (he seems morally at a loss sometimes, through lack of empathy). But that is only the half of it; the really amazing thing is his lack of logical knowledge. Have you ever heard Spock refer to any logical results or the great logicians of the past? Aristotle, Leibniz, Frege, Russell and Whitehead, Godel—nothing. Does he ever excoriate anyone for affirming the consequent, or even begging the question? Does he ever express any reverence for first-order predicate calculus, or sing the praises of modal logic? Why aren’t the great logicians ever cited by him? Does he even know what is meant by “existential generalization”? Has he heard of the logical constants? Has he ever cracked open a logic text? Clearly, he knows nothing of any of this—and yet he constantly parades his logical acumen and berates others for their lack of it. Why? It would be amusing and instructive for Captain Kirk to ask Spock what he makes of the semantic paradoxes or Russell’s class paradox or other logical conundrums—if only to make a dent in Spock’s total allegiance to logic. But that would require that someone knows some actual logic aboard the USS Enterprise. Dilithium crystals are regularly spoken of, but not logical particles (is Spock a logical atomist or a believer in possible world semantics?). Has he ever heard of soundness and completeness theorems? He is really very vague on what logic is, even in its most elementary parts; he seems to think it’s just the injunction to think rationally (and he doesn’t seem to know what that might involve—is induction rational?). In fact, the entire crew seems blissfully unaware of the issues surrounding the nature of human reason—deduction, induction, abduction, skepticism, the Cogito. I doubt that anyone has a view on whether existence is a predicate (not even the thoughtful Lieutenant Ohura).
What are we Trekkies to make of this? Only one conclusion is “logical”: the creators of the show are similarly logically illiterate. And yet the entire show is centered around the concept of the logical! Did Gene Rodenberry ever consult a real logician or open a logic book? Did he ever wonder what professionals have to say about logic? I doubt it. Nor, evidently, did any of the writers—or the great Leonard Nimoy himself. William Shatner you can understand not having much interest in logic, but surely Leonard Nimoy must have wondered about it as he said his famous lines in praise of logic. The producers obviously consulted scientists so as to get their science right, but logic—oh no. I don’t get it. I definitely don’t like it. Just think how different the show would be if some real logic had crept in. I like to think of Spock arching his eyebrow and remarking, “As Frege taught us…” or “As Hume pointed out…”. That would have shut McCoy up.
If icons or emojis were supported on this site, I would have used the check, heavy plus and LOL instead of this comment.
It is odd, isn’t it? Pretty funny too.
I can’t see why Spock would concern himself with such piffling earth minds as Aristotle, Russell etc – surely there would be plenty of superior Vulcan logicians to study.
This is a very interesting topic that touches on something I realised while watching Next Generation. Back in the 60s/70s Sci fi just seemed to be about imagining anything you could, it didn’t have to be explained, understood with quite the rigour as now – it just was, the audience could accept crazy stuff like that could happen. It inspired so many scientists to mimic/ recreate what they saw as children and the dream seems to be creating all the things they saw in Star Trek. However Next Generation, while very entertaining, was a lot more nerdy – hemmed in by science, having to explain more. Imaginative leaps still had to be made, but they now had to have a certain scientific coherence to them. At least that’s how I see it. I find Sci Fi pretty dull these days.
Even Kubrik’s 2001, while pretty technically accurate (because of Mr Clarke’s involvement) still manages to show us something beyond our understanding.
Btw, I always loved how you could destroy a 1960s/ 70s computer just by giving it a paradox to think about.
Remember that Spock knows all about human history and is aboard a ship full of humans, so he would mention human logicians if he knew anything about them. In addition he would know all about Vulcan logic and might throw in a reference to that occasionally–but he never does. You would think he didn’t know that logic could be studied and discussed. I don’t think he could be that ignorant, so I blame the show’s creators.
First, Star Trek is for a popular audience and back in the sixties there was more of a widespread interest in science and technology than logic and philosophy..Also, Science Fiction as a whole might be different. I’m not an avid reader of science fiction, but take the example of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy- it tackles philosophical questions. Some clever line about how the answer to the universe was 42. And to be fair to Star Trek some episodes address philosophical questions, don’t they? And come to think about it, several episodes of Star Trek have as their crux a logical issue. Forgive my vague memory, in one episode Kirk forces a computer controlling the people of a planet, named Landriau that it must be destroyed and similarly an intelligent satellite on a mission to sterilize, is convinced that it must sterilize itself. These involve very elementary matters of rule following and identity- and not logical theory proper., more like the stuff very intelligent elementary school students would find fascinating
All true, but irrelevant to the point I was making, namely Spock’s ignorance of logic. I doubt very much that anyone writing the episodes had any knowledge of logical theory and its history, and didn’t care. Did they even know that logic is an academic subject?