What justifies our logical axioms?

[MrDoom]

What is it that justifies the logical axioms that we use in everyday mathematics, philosophy, and reasoning? Why is truth usually taken as something to strive for? Conversely, why do we hold falsehood or worse, contradiction to be "bad", something inferior, that we want to avoid?

[Xaqaria]

The human experience is based on consistency and accurate prediction. We survive through our ability to form accurate models of what might be, and what could be. This ability hinges, on a very fundamental level, on our perceptions of what is and what is not. Information that remains consistently reliable allows us to continually form successful predictions for our survival. Misinformation and contradiction are deadly in the realm of prediction.

[MrDoom]

Isn't it concievable that there are such things as "useful errors"? Or, conversely, "harmful truths"? Have you ever come out of a situation on the better end precisely because you erred or did not come across some truth? Much of the conflict of the 20th century, for example, involved the question of whether or not humans can safely and responsibly wield the rammifications of nuclear power. Some would argue that it might have been better had we never came across such discoveries. A more extreme example would be Neo-Luddism or Anarcho-Primitivism, which seek to abandon all widespread application of science and technology for what they see as humanity's continued safety.

[Oneironaut Zero]

I think error serves a purpose, but only if the person at fault is truely willing to look at their errors objectively, and try to find a more objective truth. I believe there are "harmful truths," but only in the instance that the person receiving that truth is not able to handle it. There is nothing wrong, objectively, with learning the truth. If that truth "forces" you to into some adverse reaction which causes something negative, in turn, then it would be your fault, and not the fault of the truth itself.

[Grey Owl]

I know this is an old topic but you pose an interesting question and I have something that may be of interest. According to the mathematician/philosopher Kurt Gödel it is not possible to effectively justify our logical axioms. This was shown in Gödel's incompleteness theorems and this view is widely accepted in the academic world today; yet rarely touched . The second incompleteness theorem best addresses your question and can be stated as follows. 'For any formal recursively enumerable (i.e. effectively generated) theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent.'

[Minervas Phoenix]

What is it that justifies the logical axioms that we use in everyday mathematics, philosophy, and reasoning? Why is truth usually taken as something to strive for? Conversely, why do we hold falsehood or worse, contradiction to be "bad", something inferior, that we want to avoid? This is based on a general misconception from the fatal illusion that imagination is not more powerful than the force of it's effect which is seen as something alien from the self but which in actuality is observed in the material world when manifested as experience and is in fact self controllable from the very beginning. A real knowledgeable person is not going to see false logic or contradictions as inferior except in those cases which imagination requires for certain manifesting effects of reality that is to be created purposefully. The knowledgeable person sees truth and illusion as a tool to be used to ones advantage and not something rigid that cannot be mastered. Mastery stems from conscious awareness of the power within imagination and ideas over it's already manifested effects. For any formal recursively enumerable (i.e. effectively generated) theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent.' T can equal reality and control others before they even know what they will think next by superior flow of imagination.