SUO: Re: Logic & Programming Languages
Seth,
I would like to give an answer to your closing statement:
> Logic is Great ... survival is better.
But no animal can survive without being logical. When a bird or a mouse
flees from a cat, it is being logical. When a dog begs for food when
it is hungry, it is being logical. When a deer goes to a spring or
a river when it is thirsty, it is being logical.
To survive, an animal must be logical.
Seth Russell wrote:
> From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
>
> > One of the problems that Peirceans have in explaining
> > how semiotics is a broader, more general subject than
> > logic is that the receiver of its avowal is naturally
> > prompted to ask: But how can I reason, or think well,
> > about anything at all, much less signs, without using
> > logic? But that is like asking: How can I speak or
> > write at all without having a formal grammar of my
> > native tongue within my utter grip and quick grasp?
>
> Hmmm ... I was just thinking about that. But are you saying that thinking
> and what passes for human reasoning has anything to do with (is perhaps some
> kind of subclass of) logic ?
What goes on in the brain is not likely to be predicate calculus
with variable substituions, modus ponens, etc. But to be correct
and to promote the survival of the individual, thinking must conform
to the standards of logic -- that means that useful, survival-promoting
thinking must lead from true statements to other true statements.
In so far as it generates false statements, it is counterproductive
and detrimental to survival -- in beasts as much as in humans.
> Well I think not. Rather it seems to me
> that logic is just what happens of necessity. To the extent we are free, we
> are aLogical.
Those people (and other animals) who are illogical are weeded out by
natural selection. For examples, see the Darwin awards:
http://www.darwinawards.com/
> A computer, on the other hand is quite logical, regardless
> of what task it is performing, in that its actions are determined by
> necessity. Therefore whatever instructions the computer executes *are*
> logical expressions.
A computer computes logically because it was designed by humans
who were being paid to produce high-speed logical engines. It would
be very easy to design computers that were illogical, but nobody would
pay to have them built because they would have no survival value.
> This, me thinks, tracks Sowa's thesis closely.
I don't know what how you would relate your claims to anything I said,
but I don't agree with your conclusions.
John Sowa