SUO: *Date 05 Apr 2002 -- Formalism Engineering
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Formalism Engineering
The other day, in the midst of the survey sutra, I expressed the matter this way:
What is "formalism engineering" if not the critique of existing formalisms and
the art of designing them more to the point of their transcendental purposes?
A critical method over any domain, in any field, from any point of view,
depends on being able to consider alternatives, to compare and contrast
them, as our teachers used to say. Now, we are all used to doing that
in regard to many different subject matters, even as far as the words
and languages -- from natural to nominal to nurtural to newfangled --
that we use to carry out our thoughts in poem or prose or program.
But how do we find a place to stand in regard to logic?
Where is the examen of the balance to weigh our reason?
Where is the fulcrum of the lever to shift for thought?
Well, we make the question too hard for ourselves when we ask it that way!
And yet it seems that many people are blocked in their critical reasoning
by one or another equally facile indentifixation of their favorite syntax
for tackling their sublunary logical chores with Pure Reason Its Own Self.
Yes, I am still preambling, still stalling, to be honest,
but this is a problem in whose approach to broach I have
failed many times before, so please excuse my hesitation,
if I need to float like a butterfly for a while.
I'll be back ...
Jon Awbrey
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