Lewis Carroll Logic Puzzles

[LizPendens™]

since some of you are burned out on lsat logic but still want to have some fun, try the following syllogisms created by the victorian-era oxford logic and mathematics scholar, the rev.charles dodgson, also known as alice in wonderland author lewis carroll.



Once master the machinery of Symbolic Logic, and you have a mental occupation always at hand, of absorbing interest, and one that will be of real use to you in any subject you may take up. It will give you clearness of thought - the ability to see your way through a puzzle - the habit of arranging your ideas in an orderly and get-at-able form - and, more valuable than all, the power to detect fallacies, and to tear to pieces the flimsy illogical arguments, which you will so continually encounter in books, in newspapers, in speeches, and even in sermons, and which so easily delude those who have never taken the trouble to master this fascinating Art.

                     - Lewis Carroll



the following syllogisms or logic puzzles were meant to be nonsensical. Dodgson felt that readers might read too much into recognizable connections. as you would with an LR stimulus, break them down into formal logic componants and their contrapositives: A --> B, etc.


i'll post three now. if you like them i'll post some more of increasing difficulty.

1)

(a)  All babies are illogical.
(b)  Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.
(c)  Illogical persons are dispised.
(d)  ?

2)

(a) My saucepans are the only things that I have that are made of tin;
(b) I find all your presents very useful;
(c) None of my saucepans are of the slightest use.
(d) ?


3)

(a) None of the unnoticed things, met with at sea, are mermaids.
(b) Things entered in the log, as met with at sea, are sure to be worth remembering.
(c) I have never met with anything worth remembering, when on a voyage.
(d) Things met with at sea, that are noticed, are sure to be recorded in the log. 
(e) ?

[theo]

Don't make us wait, you tease:

http://home.earthlink.net/~lfdean/carroll/puzzles/logic.html

[YoCallMeD]

that is so freakin' cool

links, please!

i have a feeling i could crack out on these ala sudoku

[LizPendens™]

Don't make us wait, you tease:

http://home.earthlink.net/~lfdean/carroll/puzzles/logic.html

theo, damn you! i was going to slowly and enticingly release the answers and post new problems.

[LizPendens™]

that is so freakin' cool

links, please!

i have a feeling i could crack out on these ala sudoku

the dude published entire books of these and other mathy and logicky kinds of things. ::shudder::


http://www.amazon.com/s/102-1286021-3604966?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link%5Fcode=qs&field-keywords=lewis%20carroll%20logic&sourceid=Mozilla-search

[YoCallMeD]

lol, first place i looked after the initial post

thanks, though

[LizPendens™]

here's the same thing but prettily illustrated:

http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~hile/math100/logice.htm

and some links:

http://www.lewiscarroll.org/logic.html

[LizPendens™]

that stuff is fun, and LSAT like, as long as I only pay attention to the nouns and the verbs.  Mostly the verbs, I like to call the nouns things like X, Y and Z

that was his point, in his jabberwocky way, of using nonsense nouns, forcing lazy thinkers like me to break them down into abstracts.


i'm a big lewis carroll fan, if you couldn't already tell.

[LizPendens™]

Lewis Carroll may have exaggerated a little, as math professors often do about the utility of their subject.

this is as false as false can be!

where did that quote come from?

[LizPendens™]

i love this:

According to the
Mock Turtle, the
four branches of
arithmetic are
(1) Ambition
(2) Distraction
(3) Uglification
(4) Derision.


as a math-phobe, i'm taking it as my personal motto.