ONT Re: Zeroth Order Ontology
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ZOO. Note 4
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I once had a way of looking at logic as a purely "formal" game,
played with symbolic tokens that are unencumbered by any taint
of game-external meaning, a game played "for the beauty" alone.
Latin "forma" means "beauty", among its other senses. I ought
to explain that my sense of "form" in those early days derived
more from the 'Glasperlenspiel' of Hermann Hesse than it would
have done from anything that Hilbert or Wittgenstein wrote, so
it was not so much a logical programme as an aesthetic project.
In the late 60's this is how I regarded the subject of logical
graphs, as epitomized by CSP's alpha graphs and GSB's calculus
of indications. Both of these systems, mere variations on the
same formal theme, are "very abstract calculi" (VAC's), rather
more abstract than logical formalisms proper, since they could
be interpreted for the subject matter of zeroth order logic in
more than one way.
I am still a bit jet-lagged, so I'm going to have a late night
cup of coffee, and try to explain this topic later or tomorrow.
Jon Awbrey
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