SUO: Re: CG: *Date 08 Apr 2002 -- Logical Languages, Auld, Bony, Braw, Dory, Eith, Hyte, & Unco
Jon,
What a hopelessly naive statement:
JA> I used to think that a standard for something was supposed to help
> make things better, even to push to the edge and nudge innovation
> a bit among the more adventurous, not to canonize the status quo
> and lock the flocks into the lowest common denominator of the
> common practices and the common mal-practices of the times.
A standard canonizes the lowest common ground rules, such as the
convention that drivers stay to the right in the US and to the left
in the UK. That convention says nothing about the technology used
in the cars or the places where people should go.
That is all that the CL standard is doing. It enables different
groups who use different dialects of the various logics to
communicate, just as the driving conventions enable different
kinds of vehicles to get to different places on the same roads.
In Peirce's terms, the CL standard does not show how to conduct
an inquiry, but it does nothing to block the way of inquiry.
John Sowa