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# About the Contest
This article is an entry to @logiczombie’s Contest. If you fancy participating, you can find the contest [here](https://steempeak.com/contest/@logiczombie/200-steem-essay-writing-contest-what-s-a-logiczombie).
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# Prompt/Ask
The expectation is to come out with our understanding of ‘What a Logic Zombie is?”
For this the account @logiczombie (I mention it as an account because it is also of the same name as the contest topic) wants us to understand the topic a bit more by visiting his (or her 😊) blog.
Once you get a sense, you can go ahead and write about it in your blog and post the link under the contest blog page. Also, use the tag #logiczombie.
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# Introduction
Human civilisation has seen a marked transition from the knowledge-based culture to one that is defined and described by economic prowess. The ancient world lauded the Indians, Egyptians, Greeks and other similar cultures for their knowledge, and hence, development based on knowledge. Such cultures (I call it culture rather than country because they influenced the world beyond their borders) in many ways earned respect across the world. A browse through the pages of history will reveal this.
The standing based on knowledge, unfortunately, transitioned to one defined by economic prowess and hence military strength. Today, the countries are ranked based on their economic strength, and hence, we rank them on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or GDP per capita. The logic was that a country which can produce more and cater more of the world demand has to be assumed to be intellectually sound too; and here starts, partly, the contradiction.
Such a way of ranking assumes that knowledge and economic prowess are the same, despite any number of facts to state otherwise. While this in itself is a large topic of discussion, we will not delve deep here, rather take one other assumption which comes out from here and discuss it further.
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# What is this Assumption that we are talking about?
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>**The knowledge-based world assumed that logical interpretations were good enough to state a fact, however, the economically-ranked world assumed that any condition other than logic can also be used to state a fact.**
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# What does this mean?
Let’s understand the above statement with the help of an example.
**Economic strength can also be an underlying reason for an accurate statement of facts.** However, this is an assumption.
But why is that an assumption and not the truth, you ask.
Because it assumes that the economically more powerful nation or nations will speak on behalf of the community without giving in to selfish interest. So, the strongest voice can replace logic to state a fact. What the world communities failed to recognise is that the strongest voice need not be the factually, correct one.
An additional corollary to this assumption is that:
**The loudest-voice can be a factually correct one.**
This substitution of logic by strong (or loud) voice has led to facts being twisted and turned to suit a particular narrative, and in many cases, repeated multiple times to appear as gospel truth.
Well, I am certain that I must have sounded cryptic so far, so let me give an example to drive my point.
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## Country Level Rhetoric (laced with intentional or unintentional bias)
One of the things that we hear a lot about these days is the Human Rights Violation across countries. What is interesting here is that a few economically strong countries come out with global analysis talking about human freedom or the lack of it and condemn a country or countries basis the study.
Now, while this is welcome, there are some underlying assumptions here. Let’s list them out:
1. Since the study comes from the economically strongest nation, the study must be accurate
2. The country coming out with the study assumes that it does not have any human rights violation within its own geographical boundary. This assumption could be due to unintentional (or intentional) bias
3. Even if there are human right violations in the economically strongest country, it is assumed that the lesser countries won’t oppose it, lest they face repercussions
4. So, the strongest country presents a report and that report is accepted as fact; in many cases, without opposition
This methodology of nodding and agreeing to the economically strongest is so prevalent that few other countries have copied them with a slight change.
The difference is that such countries believe in shouting the loudest and continue repeating it until the world believes them. The loudest is the most correct, according to them. Normally, they will use this ***‘shouting the loudest’*** strategy against their perceived enemy countries.
**To summarize, we just saw an example where economic might or loudest in the room, replaces logic to pass a statement as fact.**
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## Age-Based Seniority
Until Mark Zuckerberg came by, the general notion among the masses was that anyone who is or would be your senior would be age-wise older than you. The idea of a younger individual becoming your boss was unheard of at least three decades back. In fact, many would assume that to be put under a younger boss was a demeaning gesture.
The idea of the smartest progressing faster was not an accepted fact back then. Organisations were in denial and ended up creating more organisational levels to show a pseudo-promotion to keep employees motivated and yet ensure that the age-based hierarchy remained.
Of course, now we know that Mark (and many before him) changed the age-based organisational structure. However, the after-effects of this change continue to remain. If I was asked if younger people be in a boss’ position, I may agree and may even give a flowery speech as to why we should not be worried about the age of a person at the top.
However, if someone asked me if I would be fine working under a person younger than me, my apparent discomfort would be quite visible; this, despite my opinion of how others’ should be fine with age-independent organisational structure.
**With this example, we see that the long-held notion of fact refuses to transition to a new reality, and therefore, a new fact. We also notice that there could be a certain level of bias in individuals accepting a new reality for others but not for themselves!**
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## God and Religion
The topic of God and religion is very close to peoples’ heart and hence, becomes one of the most controversial subjects to be touched. In fact, 90% of the wars in the world, as we speak, is because of religion or an allied misinterpretation of religion.
Let’s look at a few of the assumptions related to God and religion
### Assumption 1: God and Religion are the same
Surprise!! They are not.
The way to understand this is easy. Name one religions text, be it the Holy Bible, Holy Quran or the Bhagvad Gita, where God speaks or comes for a particular religion? What I mean is, did Jesus Christ come for humanity or Christians (in fact, the name itself comes to existence after Christ. So, obviously, Jesus did not give the name.)? Did Allah send all the prophets for humanity or Muslims? Did Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, play a role in the universe for humans or Hindus?
As you would have realised, the answer to all three was - for humanity! It is just the followers who named a religion and got to the conclusion that God came for the followers of that particular religion. The flipside of it is that even today, we assume God is a synonym of religion.
See the fallacy and hence the misunderstanding? But the fallacy would be more apparent in the next example.
### Assumption 2: We need to fight for our religion
Let’s elaborate on this assumption a bit more. Christians have to save Christianity, while Muslims have to save Islam. Correct? Isn’t this the bone of contention today?
Now, if God and religion were the same, we could replace the mentioned religion with God, in the above statements. Let’s see how the new replaced statements read:
Christians have to save God, while Muslims have to save Allah.
Can you feel the contradiction? I bet you do. If God is the Almighty and we are His creations, how on Earth are we going to save Him? We assumed religion to stand for God and hence ran into a never-ending race to achieve nothing!!
### Assumption 3: Without us, our religion would be destroyed
Although, we have established through the previous two assumptions that God and religion are not the same, let’s consider this particular assumption for religion alone.
We claim that all the major known religions have existed for thousands of years, and yet today we feel that without us, the religion would not propagate further. The fear of religion being under threat leads to misperceived fear of others and hence, anger and enmity towards the followers of other religion.
It is clearly our error in interpretation, and yet this single misunderstanding is the largest cause of death worldwide. If only we could do away with the misplaced fear, the world would be a better place to live.
Here we saw another example of misinterpretation of God and religion leading to one of the biggest turmoil in humanity.
**So, we have seen three different areas where the facts were not grounded on logic but on factors other than logic. We have also seen the result of such facts which are devoid of logic. Hence, it is important that we be careful in our assessment of facts.**
Do facts need to be always grounded on logic? Can there be some other worthy replacements to logic?
Let’s see.
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# Will Logical Interpretation work everywhere?
While this article attempted to deal with the topic of being logical in arriving at facts, we too erred a bit in assuming that anything that is logical is usually the right thing to do.
Let’s investigate this aspect with a few examples:
1. You are late for a meeting, and you are driving as fast as you could. You come across an accident on the road, where a dog is hurt needing medical attention (worst still, what if it is a human). There is no one to help. What would you do?
Answer: Logically, drive away because you have to keep a time commitment. A less logical outcome would be that you help the dog and in the process lose your meet. If we pose a question to you as to which one is the correct thing to do, what would be your answer? Heart or Logic?
2. Second situation, you are the pilot of a bomber which is on a mission to bomb a terrorist hideout. You are aware that the bomb may kill many more innocents than terrorists. What would you do?
Answer: Logically, bomb anyway because that is a direct order. Less logical, that you would not carry out the mission and hence be court-martialed. But which one is right? Mind and Heart or Logic?
So, these were few examples where logic did not have the answer, and the situation begged to be evaluated holistically.
***Perhaps, this is why our forefathers wanted recognition to be based on “knowledge” and not on “economic power”!***
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