Logic with a Base

(I dedicate this post to my new-found interest in computer programming)
Logic, as I would define, is a series of well-reasoned inferences, one leading to another, arriving at the conclusion so sought for. The reasons are based on a set of fundamental axioms. As it all begins from one single statement which needs to have another statement beneath it for it to be an inferred statement, and since it doesn’t have one, it has to be an axiom. Now this set of axioms is what I would call ideology.
From political differences (which lead to constant heated arguments between my father and me) to differences in attitude towards a relationship (a subject I take active interest in, with data collected from my friends and their objects of love) to differences in friendships, to petty differences arising during gang-wars and communal-wars alike, everywhere, everyone on every side of the battle, know too well that they are right, and their opponents or opposing peers are wrong. So what then, is the underlying mechanism that drives people to the so called “right” answer? It is very easy to say that either one of them has to be eternally wrong, but has been prejudiced into believing he or she is right, like when it is a case like terrorism under consideration. But it isn’t so easy always.
It is very difficult to make such conclusions when it is a case of political ideology. We accept as a democracy that there can be different ideologies people follow, and the ideology that wins public acceptance leads the rest. So does that make the other ideology wrong? We cannot be very sure of that. But the thing that we can be sure of is that, to the world, right or wrong is a concept that belies on the concept of public vote.
Now what I consider of interest to me is the way people defend their own ideology and frame a seemingly perfect logic on the basis of this ideology, thus concluding that anyone who differs with them has simply NO logic! Now, the truth is that the other person has similarly framed his own logic on the ideology that he has defended for so long.
There is a reason that I have spotted, that makes people adamant in their views, or as we have been terming it, ideology. The reason is more psychological in nature. Every individual grows up in an environment unique to himself, and thus has his own set of observations, and based on his previous observations, develops his own interpretations of these observations. Thus, he develops views or paradigms based on this set of observations and interpretations. This leads to a personality or in psychological terms, a cognitive framework. It is not just human tendency but even a tendency experienced by a computer program, that if it encounters conflicting or inconsistent results, or it finds a loophole in its own algorithm where it can’t proceed further, the program crashes. (Ever heard of the dangling references error? It occurs when a previously defined reference, in form of a heap variable is destroyed, and a pointer reference is made to it. The compiler confuses itself into finding the reference, but fails to find one). That is exactly what happens when an ideology is proved wrong to the person holding it, through his own logic. He crashes to depths of his own mind. Such a kind of personal tragedy can lead a person to change uncontrollably. So what I have learnt is when I enter a very sensitive debate, it is sometimes a better option to pretend to have lost, rather than fight out and prove the other wrong, simply by finding dangling references, thus causing hurt and system breakdown of the opponent.
Some examples of system breakdown are ‘break-ups’ in teenage relationships. Another example is when an old man, after living more than 95% of his life under specific ideologies is forced to face the reality of “today” where his views do not hold. This is an example of the program failing when it is tried with a test-case that it is not written for. Betrayal is another form the dangling references bug. One person makes it an axiom to trust another and through this logic he is proved wrong.
There is another thought to this essay. What amazes me currently is that man really is not so different from a computer program. It requires simply going further into the depths of the human mind to understand his full potential to be a consistent, accurate, and predictable self-building, computer program.
This way of thinking has led me to follow a different way of life or a religion. A life full of logic, based on certain paradigms, and with the full understanding that my paradigms aren’t always followed by everyone. So I am ready for encountering a dangling references bug or even an extra test case which I haven’t programmed myself for. All I need to do is rewrite my program…