And there are many different ways to solve a problem in programming depending on the programmer, paradigm or programming language. Object orientated is only one paradigm. Functional programming, for example, will have a very different approach - function composition rather than classes and property inheritance. Even the way a problem is framed is arbitrary. — emancipate

Sure, but they all involve logic (error-free thinking) if you want to actually solve the problem.

If the way a question is framed is arbitrary, are we sure we're asking the same question if the question is framed differently? How would you know? Maybe because some words mean the same thing?

Is it easier to comprehend if I say that ambiguity cannot be completely eliminated? The best we can do is a good enough approximation. Good enough to work with, we can have a discussion and understand each other to a certain extant, not completely but enough. This is the problem with language as transmission of thought: lack. Logic doesn't solve this because it necessarily omits what it considers to be the excess of thought, in an attempt to remove ambiguity.

I dispute the notion that 'proper thinking' and philosophy should aim towards logical reduction. — emancipate

To say that it can't be completely eliminated would imply that we know what ambiguity being completely removed looks like to say that it hasn't been completely removed.

What has been lost in our conversation? Have I not understood you? If you meant more than what you said, then just say what you meant.

To say that it can't be completely eliminated would imply that we know what ambiguity being completely removed looks like to say that it hasn't been completely removed. — Harry Hindu

The fact that you can even play these language games displays the inherant ambiguity

I don't play language games. That is Banno's forte.

Is it a language game? If it were then there was no ambiguity, was there, as you correctly interpreted my use of words as a game.

However it isn't, so while this shows that you might be right in language being ambiguous, it shows that you are wrong in that what I said was intended to be a language game.

Now, why don't we see if we can completely eliminate the ambiguity by you asking questions about what I said so that I can clarify what I said so that it will be less ambiguous for you, as you are the only person that I am aware of that claimed what I said was a language game. But you don't seem to want to completely eliminate ambiguity, you'd rather assert something that isn't true - that I am playing language games. So, it seems possible that ambiguity can be eliminated, but both parties need to want that.

The problem is that people are confusing their goals.

Take this as an example:

If I wrote a program that only showed a profit for a company because I wanted to spare the CEO's feelings, then that company wouldn't be a company for very long. — Harry Hindu

Is my goal to spare the feelings of the CEO or to display the true state of the company's budget on a computer screen? It seems that the program is written with one goal in mind - to spare the feelings of the CEO.

Should you spare your mother's feelings and lie to her, or tell her the truth that you want to join a rock band instead of becoming a doctor? Once you decide what path you want to take, you write a program to reach that goal. If you are confusing the two, then that is the problem.

You might say that the problem is deciding which path to take, and again I would say that you would use logic to determine the answer. You would ask yourself what other consequences there might be other than your mother flipping her lid, and those consequences become reasons for you to tell her or not to tell her.

So even in our everyday lives, we use logic. It's just that we don't apply all the rules and we end up making bad decisions because we didn't account for all the possible consequences of our actions, and therefore our reasoning wasn't complete before making the decision.