It's all Fallacy

 
It had got to 3pm and I realised that I had been transfixed to my computer screen since breakfast. I'm getting to the end of a write up of a lit-review and was focussing on the time consuming finish touches…
 
It's been an enlightening journey in which I continue to learn… mainly about the idiocy of humanity. My major discovery is to understand how philosophy underpins all forms of problem solving. This is hardly ground breaking stuff and my guess is that I'm having many of the same thoughts that 'thinkers' had thousands of years ago. But that's the point. Innovation is the buzz word, but if we don't follow simple laws or maxims in problem solving, then we'll continue to make the same mistakes.
 
One of these maxims comes from David Hume, a fellow Edinburger, who lived in the city in the 18th century. He was highly influential to people like Adam Smith and Noam Chomsky (not such an apparent contradiction as it seems).  His is-ought problem, the naturalistic fallacy, is fundamental to how theories and paradigms should be formed.  If we simply focus on the idealistic 'ought to be' without considering 'what is' then the likelihood is that the problem won't be solved. That means considering the consequences of actions at every stage of the problem solving process. Humans aren't very good at this.
 
Anyway, I decided that I needed a break and headed up to Brew Lab for lunch and a cheeky Ethiopian (coffee). I made the mistake of having a spicy peanut satay thingy for lunch and lost all the complex flavours of the coffee as a result.
 

Then I headed to the library of Edinburgh Uni' and worked there until my brain was frazzled. I had a wee walk and just happened to pass the Kebab Mahal on the way to the bus stop. Hmmm….as Rosemary is away racing in Germany, I decided that this was a great option for tea. The vegetable biriyani was huge, as was my nan bread. Of course, I managed to finish the nan…but had to get a doggy bag for my leftover rice.