From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1014db,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony) Subject: Re: Software Engineering is not a hoax... Date: 1997/05/29 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 244762974 Distribution: world References: <5mc1a2$icf$1@dbs1.sma.ch> Organization: PSI Public Usenet Link Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article atbowler@thinkage.on.ca (Alan Bowler) writes: > In article <5mc1a2$icf$1@dbs1.sma.ch> lga@sma.ch writes: > > > >Another science (namely mathematics) has been able to codify thinking. I admit > >that production of great works has always been a question of creativity. But you > >rarely see mathematicians fighting against the Aristotelian principles of logic > >(true or false exclusively, no third case; logic of predicates). > > Maybe. My first year calculus prof refused to cover the proof of the > chain rule. He accepted the chain rule, but did not feel the standard > proof was valid "Standard" here refers to the typical way it is handled in first year calculus. I wouldn't say it is not valid - rather more like incomplete, and so, some say, misleading (which is probably why your prof. didn't want to say much about it). > , and felt we did not have sufficient background to handle the proof > he accepted. Unless you were/are a Ramanujan or something, he is quite right. You need quite a bit more advanced analysis or topology beyond first semester Calculus to get there. > My 4th year logic prof mentioned some > disagreements he had with other schools of logicians. > I think the reason that you don't see "mathematicians fighting against > the Aristotelian principles" Actually, IMO "Aristotelian principles of logic" are in general irrelevant to mathematical logicians. Those principles are naive and don't have the necessary rigor to offer much. Of course, what expressivity they have has been easily and much more precisely captured. > from more basic principles, and they do fight over what those are. Indeed. /Jon -- Jon Anthony Organon Motives, Inc. Belmont, MA 02178 617.484.3383 jsa@organon.com