Re: opinions vs knowledge - The Cave is Constructed

>It is really have some difficulty to understand how we can think that
>"logic" is a (narrow) human invention!!!????

Fenzl--

(My second posting this week. Limiting to two seems a good rule.)

We are talking about four domains here:

--1. How things actually work

--2. How things appear to work

--3. How we express and reason about how things work

--4. How the entities involved "express and reason about how things work"

Edwina used the term "logic" in the context of Socratic caves,
Aristotle and Peirce. She used terms like "rational" and
"reasonable." To my mind (and many I presume) her use of the term
puts her use in domain 3. My point was that most workers in logic
have many different logics. All are invented for different purposes
and distort the reality they represent and about which they reason.

You used the term "logic" in such a way that means (I think) that
there is some coherent set of laws in domain 1 that result in
reproducable effects. That's different.

As common terms of art in computer science, I use "mechanics" and
"physics" for domain 1, and "logic" variously for the rest. I believe
there is a large distance of abstraction among these four. Edwina at
least believes 2 and 1 are the same or close and "logic" covers both.
Whatever you choose is a religious decision, but there are tens of
thousands of places where you can recount what people said about the
the relationships among 1, 2 and 3. I suppose it has pedagogical
value, but that Christmas tree is pretty well decorated.

I interpret the FIS to agenda to be concerned with domain 4 and
relationships with the others. There are very few forums for this, so
I suppose the focus here to be worth preserving.

I can even claim some small role in "creating" a logic myself. Twenty
years ago a problem somewhat similar to the FIS one was defined in
terms of the restrictions of existing logics. We specified
characteristics of a new logic to design, and essentially established
a research center to do so. I played a minor role in the problem
identification and arranging the funding. The center is still strong
at Stanford. The project was led by our probably greatest living
logician at the time (who died last year). The logic is "situation
logic," which at his death was being extended to "channel logic" to
address something much like domain 4.

Whatever we invent, it will likely be algebra-friendly and exploit
group theory. The route of abstraction among the four domains
(especially 3 and 4) must be formally specified; I am hopeful that
category theory will guide that.

Best, Ted

-- 
Ted Goranson
Advanced Enterprise Research Office