Appetizers and Lessons for Mathematics and Reason 
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||Définition d'une variable || Algèbre || Arithmetique || Logique ||La raison basée sur les règles et modelés||

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1,  Elements of Reason.
1A. Pattern Based Reason 
1B. Math Curriculum Notes
2. Three Skills for Algebra
   Three Skills for Algebra
3. Why Slopes & More Math
 Avid Readers: Try Pattern Based Reason  & chs 
 1 to 12, 14,  16 & 17  in  Three Skills for Algebra.
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YOU are better than YOU think. Show yourself  how:  

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Read  logic chapters 1 to 5  in online volume Three Skills for Algebra  for greater skills & confidence in  work 
and study.

Learn to read notes and textbooks like a lawyer, so that no nuance, no subtlety and no clause escapes your attention.

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 Logic chapters 1 to 5  re- appear not in sequence, as is or longer,  in  Volume 1A,  Pattern Based Reason, Bon Appetite.

Logic Mastery
 Amazing, Amusing, Amorous,  Delicious, Delightful, Edifying, Strengthening Elixir. 
It eases work & learning difficulties Makes the hard easier. Opens eyes. Leads to greater precision.
in reading and
writing

Logic mastery makes the hard, easier. Logic mastery  leads to better, stronger and richer comprehension.  Logic mastery  improves reading and writing.  Logic mastery ease learning difficulties.  Logic mastery gives a headstart.  In sum, logic mastery  will develops critical thinking, improve reading and writing, and give a firmer base for work and studies at many levels. Good luck.


After logic  (a) continue reading Three Skills for Algebra, chapters 8 to 14  and do so alongside site area on solving liinear Equations ; or (b) see this calculus starter lesson and Volume 3, Why Slopes  & More Math, chapters 2 to 6;

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Caution: Site advice is approximately correct, for some circumstances, not all. That leaves room for thought

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What may be learnt and when depends on how skills and concepts are developed. Making the hard easier and clearer will allow earlier & richer development of skills and concepts.


Try the Twiddla Whiteboard. In principle, it  allows to people to draw and chat together online on a copy of this webpage or a clean sheet. The chat may be via text or audio.  Visit www.twiddla.com to set up whiteboards to work with the webpage of your choice.

For online automated help in senior high school maths & calculus, visit  quickmath.com  For Automatic Calculus and Algebra Help with derivatives, integrals, graphs, linear equations, matrix algebra, visit calc101.com  With  overlap, each site quickmath & calc101offers a different range of services, some free, some not, all based on webmathematica. Good luck.

Euclidean Model of Reason
Chapter 13

Previous: Chapter 12, Islands and Divisions of Knowledge

The road and door analogies in the previous chapter describe the division of human knowledge into sections or islands. The knowledge in each section may be strongly or weakly linked together by implications. Knowledge in one section may touch or not touch that of another. All depends on what implication rules are known. Our minds can explore each section of knowledge as we meet it.

In this chapter, the Euclidean model for organizing reason and knowledge is discussed. In this Euclidean model for reason and knowledge, each area or segment of knowledge is derived via chains of reason from a few secure first principles or assumptions about data and implication rules. This Euclidean model is an ideal which we would like to attain. Can we?

Deduction From First Principles

The aim of the axiomatic/deductive method is to gather and to organize an island or body of knowledge so that all parts of it can be reached from a few basic, clear and self-evident ideas or principles. This is the axiomatic goal. The simplicity of this goal, an ideal, is appealing.

Where or with what should we begin? The starting points and the rules used are human selections. If one point can be reached from another, and vice-versa, then each is as good as the other as a starting point. Changing the starting place in this manner does not change the destinations or results reachable. Finally, different starting points for the organization of knowledge have different advantages. A central starting place may provide faster or easier access to the various parts and results.

The axiomatic deductive method is used in mathematics, in the physical sciences and in human laws. The first model of the axiomatic method comes from Euclidean geometry: the works of Euclid and his school in mathematics some two thousand years ago. This Euclidean model of reason is deductive. It is based on supposedly self-evident facts and implication rules. Here the fewest possible rules are used to avoid conflicts and contradictions. Euclidean models for reason in all disciplines has been an ideal and goal for some philosophers and religious thinkers in Europe and possibly elsewhere. The framers of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution were perhaps influenced by the Euclidean example when they started by declaring certain rights self-evident.

The axiomatic, deductive, chain-of-reason approach to a subject requires a starting point. We try to build our knowledge and our judgments and conclusions on a few laws, principles, rules or facts that can be assumed, or viewed as self-evident. Self-evident rules and principles represent starting points, sometimes held beyond debate.

The laws, principles or facts we start with and pretend or assume to be true are called hypotheses, first principles, assumptions, postulates or axioms. Which word or phrase you use is a matter of choice. For the sake of variety, we may use all these words and phrases interchangeably.

A set of assumptions together with their consequences, that is, the conclusions which can be obtained from them, form and define a theory. (We mortals will only see a finite number of the consequences.) The set of assumptions on which a theory is built is called a foundation. Again, the assumptions forming the foundation are supposed to be self-evident, clear and credible. Identifying the self-evident ones has for mankind been a matter of trial and error, and perhaps a matter of culture.


Next: 13. Clever Mortals - the challenges of forming explanations.

 

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Volume 1A, Pattern Based Reason

 Chapters 1 to 24

FOREWORD
Three Remarks

1 Introduction
2 Communication
3. Elements of Reason
4 Implication Rules
5. Deception
6 Chains of Reason
7 Longer Chains
For & From Consistency
8. Language Change
9 Next Chapters
10 Responsibility
11 Accidental Patterns
12 Knowledge Islands
13 Euclidean Logic
14 Deductive & Empirical Views of Mathematics
15 Objectivity
16 Origin of Rules
and Patterns
17 Objective Ways

18. Waking up
19. Symbols  & Logic
20. Pronouns or Symbols
21. Truth Tables I.
22. Truth Tables II
22. Biconditional
22. Contrapositive
23. IF-THEN table
24. Indirect Reason Again

To reason often means to persuade someone of the need for an idea or action. That someone could be yourself. So be careful.

1A Logic Postscripts
- online only

+Proof by Absurdity alias proof by contradiction
+How the demand for consistency supports the law of the excluded middle
+Reality versus or with the aid of Imagination
+Links for reason, logic and crtical thinking
+Three Remarks
+History Lost or Missing

There is a difference between
knowing how to spend money,
and having money to spend.

There is likewise a difference
between mastering a skill
and having meeting a situation in which it applies.

 



 


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