– How people learn to think logically? Is there any limits to possible logical thinking, depending on age?
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So this is a lot but I think I kept it mostly ELI5
TLDR: A lot of logic is just understanding and identifying what your problem is, what the solution/goal is, and steps between them. Since logic can be applied to anything, your problem and goals can be anything, big or small.
I’m not sure what the exact science is.
I loved math and spent most of my time doing that growing up. So if I had to pin it to a school subject then it’s probably that for me, algebra in particular. I also spent a lot of time just tinkering with stuff and not caring as much if I broke something. Being able to break something and it be a test and learning opportunity instead of a failure, I think helps too.
There are also actual logic courses to look at. But even being logical minded it was tough sometimes with it being somewhat abstract.
I think tinkering and math are big though because most of what we create IS logical. Because it’s typically most efficient, based on math and science.
A good practice is to look at a problem and try to work your way through it step by step, or if you’re having trouble, backwards step by step. Because each will give you the same outcome typically (algebra)
Take a sandwich for example.
which step do you do first?
you don’t slap the pieces of bread together first because there’s nothing on them yet.
okay so we need to put our ingredients on the bread.
Let’s say it’s a pb and j.
how are we getting the ingredients on the sandwich? our hands? no. with a knife
so let’s get out a knife.
ok I have my peanut butter on the knife but I forgot to get my bread out. maybe we should have done that first before getting pb on my knife.
that’s a perfect example of logic. Assuming you didn’t just forget, people typically understand that you need to HAVE bread to be able to put something ON the bread. Most people understand basic logic because it’s typically the LOGICAL way to approach a problem lol.
Another example of working forwards and backwards:
the goal is to get your dirty clothes into the wash. If you’re about to do laundry and there’s already a clean load still in the wash that just finished.
The first step is not to throw the dirty in the wash with the clean, it’s to move the clean to the dryer.
Well we’ve been doing a lot of laundry today so there’s clothes in the dryer as well that just finished too. Do we stick our wet clean clothes in the dryer with the dry clothes that just finished? We could I guess but that’s kind of inefficient if they all fit in there at all. Instead let’s take out the dry clothes first and put those somewhere.
So in that example, the first step in our goal of getting dirty clothes into the wash was to remove the clean clothes from the dryer.
Then move the clean wet clothes to the dryer so the wash is empty for our next load.
That is logical. It satisfied our primary goal of getting the laundry done, but more importantly (to logic) also accomplished our hidden goal of doing it the most efficiently.
If you do it that way, you understand logic and didn’t really even think about it.
You understand your GOAL is to have clean clothes. Your secondary goal is to not do any extra work. And your other secondary goal is to not waste time and resources. Or those are my goals. Depending on someone’s financial situation, the order changes.
Logic is deciding what your goal is and using the least resources possible (because that it usually the inherent hidden goal). Or if your goal is to take as long as possible than everything is the opposite. Or if your goal is to only get your clothes physically in the washing machine and you don’t care about efficiency or if they get clean, etc, then you just go and throw them in there regardless of if there’s anything else in there.
It’s all about identifying what the goal/s is and identifying what steps will get you to that goal. Goals can be anything though which I think people don’t realize.
If I’m driving and someone pulls out in front of me whatever my current goal WAS, it has then changed and become “don’t hit the car that just pulled out in font of me” because my inherent daily goal is to stay alive. So our newly updated goal is to not hit the other car, what are the right steps to take that satisfy all of our objectives, etc.
Most people have at least the basics of logic, they just have trouble with or don’t spend the time to think about what their objective actually is or working through their problem step by step.
Back to your question, even based on the definition we just created, this can apply to any age assuming they are cognitive.
Even todlers have goals.
One is to be fed. Even if they don’t know that they’re hungry, they still feel that sensation and they dont like it. They don’t know the solution of getting their own food yet. And their list of abilities is still very small. So the most effective is cry and scream until food is magically placed like last time.
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