What is your comment, please?

Question

What determines the nature of logic? Does form {structure of the brain} decide its function or the function of the brain{nature of thought{ evolve the structure of the mind? Think carerfully and give a resonse. A logical response will help me to fomulate my own thinking, Many thanks.[ srry, but I am not repeating}

Answer 1

Structure and function are related. A brain needs sensory input in order to develop, particularly in the young brain. Without appropriate sensory input, a brain will not develop normally and later behaviour can be affected.

Through the long process of evolution (involving many mutations - some positively beneficial, some problematic and many neutral in effect), structure and function develop so that e.g. a bird will evolve its skills so a raptor (for instance) will be able to see for vast distances due to the structure of its eyes and the sophistication of the visual cortical cells. Animals that do well in terms of feeding and reproduction will pass their genes on to their offspring.....

Logic is a function of the 'higher learning centres' in the cortex and animals that have large areas of cortex are capable of more logical, sequential thought than animals with relatively small cortical areas. However, the latter may have well developed sub-cortical areas that allow them to e.g. rapidly respond to prey.

The lower down the animal kingdom one goes, the more an animal behaves according to stimului & responses ; this is not really logical thought as such although it may seem (to us) to be intelligent behaviour e.g. moving towards prey or moving away from a potentially damaging stimulus.

Interesting question.
An answer like this can't do it justice.

Answer 2

All humans are born with similar brains. However a child raised in the wild by wolves (wolf-man) likely will never learn to perform advanced logic. The brain is like a bucket with a given capacity. The ability to perform logic depends on what is in the bucket (education?). Education represents the passing on of mankind's accumulated knowledge. Although, there have been many interesting leaps such as Newton, Einstein and perhaps Edison to name a few. Because the brain posses certain structure (left/right brain and cortex, etc.) it can be programmed to perform beyond all simple explanation. It defies logic.

Answer 3

Structure of the brain is determined by function in the evolution. Bad function - no survival, no offspring. Thinking (and base of "logic") evolved to answer simple questions correctly. Philosophical questions are the by-product of the need to understand the environment and predict events.

Answer 4

Many aspects of the brain decide logic. I believe it is not only the way the brain was formed at birth, but also the nature in which a child grows, (the nutritional and the environmental). An adult might think in an entirely irrationally manner, if the way that their environment was laid out and formed was a negative one. For example in the case of an abused child, who grows up thinking it is perfectly alright to abuse.

Answer 5

The structure of the brain means the neurones and synapses of it form the function of brain. The chemicals that are released and neurotransmitters make signals for brain that cause the process of thinking and deciding and logic.

Answer 6

Every info that enters brain has a certain wavelength or frequency, theory which is not yet proved but under my concept. We can see those which are within visible range and those which we can hear within our audible range. The case is same with smell, taste and touch. When the brain again comes in relation to the same frequency or wavelength, as one of the five senses as interpreted prior as the same sense, memory in the stored form of wavelength inside the concerned neurons as those have stopped dividing comes to picture in the form of so - called logic !!!

Answer 7

The nature of logic is determined firstly by the teaching you received from parents/school and secondly by self-taught trial and error experiences. Once formed, the nature of logic is like a computer program running in the backround.

Answer 8

It is the functional areas of the brain.

Depending on the functional requirements the brain size varies. For a reptile, who does not need communication in languages or higher order, it is small (as the functions are less), whereas in human it is big (brain : body ratio), bcoz of more functional requirements.

Answer 9

I think logic is a function of the mind influenced by our environment, which would evolve by nature of thought.

Answer 10

Logic attempts to operate outside the constraints of the real world and the bias and corruption of minds. It strives for absolute objectivity, in which opinions, bias, experience and emotion must be rigorously sought out and excluded.

One area within the discipline of logic that attempts to formulate this exclusion is the analysis and collation of fallacies. Fallacies are erroneous arguments that are often used in debate, but should not be, because they are not, in fact, logical.

The reason they crop up in debate and discussion is that they are seductive and persuasive despite their falsehood. They frequently rely on 'common sense', which can be shown to be very inaccurate and subjective, and lead to false conclusions.

A comprehensive list of logical fallacies, together with an introduction to logical argument, can be found at
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html

This should help to show how logic seeks to transcend the limitation of minds to arrive at an 'absolute truth'. It should be noted that this 'truth' itself operates within a framework of fundamental axioms (like '2=2', etc.) whose validity is not entirely provable. Further, Godel suggest that all logical systems must ultimately be incomplete.


The structure of the brain is defined by many orders of magnitude fewer genes than would be needed to describe that structure in detail. The brain's architecture is fractal-like in that its complex structure is derived from much simpler rules. The rules are obeyed (with differing priorities) by new-born neurons as they propagate synaptic connection to other neurons. Only some of these rules are known, but they include:

o Propagate outwards, making no connection until you detect chemical X (a protein, glycoprotein, etc). At this point, establish connections to other neurons in the vicinity.

o When you establish a connection, it should initially be neutral - neither inhibitory nor excitatory. If the connection is repeatedly stimulated over time t, make it excitatory. If not, make it inhibitory.

Simple rules like these effectively *build* the brain, forming a massively parallel neural network with localised neural 'machines' dedicated to specific functions. The detailed architecture of these machines is at present only known in a few specific cases - such as the visual cortex - where appropriate input data can be fed into the system.

Humans are limited in their ability to deconstruct these architectures by, ironically, the difficulty our brains have in understanding the emergent properties of massive parallelism. It's likely that we will have to rely increasingly on computers to store and analyse the data we find.

The built brain is a combination of a) I/O devices - sensory organs; muscles; b) hard-wired processing systems - brainstem, cerebellum and the ancient brain structures; and c) the relatively new 'thinking' systems in the cerebra. This last area, because it is less mechanistic than the others, is uniquely large in humans, and appears to be the seat of 'consciousness', is of the greatest interest.

With these premises in mind, to address your question directly:

The form of the brain determines its function to a lesser or greater extent, depending on the area and function in question. This is probably less true for the cerebral 'thinking' areas than for many other brain subsystems, because the cerebra appear to be fairly general-purpose. Nevertheless a great deal of physical differentiation of function is plain in different cerebral areas: Broca's and Wernicke's speech and language centres; the left/right hemisphere split, etc. The differentiation is likely to be at least partly architectural, though the circuitry differences are not yet well understood.

Definitive assertions about the mind are hard - and probably dangerous - to make at this stage. The mind can be defined as 'the working of the brain' - or perhaps 'the working of the cerebra' since it can be argued that mind-like neural operations seem to take place in the cerebra. This definition is on a par with a description of recorded music as 'the operation of a CD player'.

Defining the 'structure of the mind' is even more slippery, and is probably best examined by looking at the factors that determine it. These include: instinct; experience; sanity; bio- and neurochemistry; mood; context and environment; value and belief systems; and, yes, brain structure. However, all of these influences may determine the actual operation of the mind to varying degrees, at different time, in different individuals. An otherwise rational person may make decisions and take extreme actions entirely on the basis of their belief system, as in those who commit multiple murder and suicide on the basis of religious beliefs.

Non-rational individuals - those who may be described as insane by virtue of damaged brain structure, neurochemical imbalance or intolerable environment - may not in extreme cases be making use of a 'mind' at all, and respond in entirely random ways to stimuli. Severely depressed persons, again with sub-optimal neurochemistry, brain structure or environment, may act equally irrationally.

So I think the answer is 'yes' to both parts of your question. It's not an either/or situation, but neither are the two factors you present the only relevant ones, by a long chalk. Almost nothing about such a hugely complex system as brain/mind can ever be entirely described by a single choice.

CD