Subject: Re: Constructionist theory misconstrued. Record set straight.
From: Steven Gabriel (sgabriel@willamette.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 09 2000 - 11:06:21 EST
> Constructionism has only shown that formal logic CAN NOT BE PROVEN to be a
> property of the universe (and therefore may be a mere human construct). No
> one has proven that formal logic IS NOT a property of the universe.
Logic is a way we have of talking about the universe. It's a categorical
mistake to call it a property of the universe. Transitivity holds for
certain operators in certain formal systems, and doesn't for others. The
fact that it does or does not is a fact about the formal system, not about
the universe.
Let me restate my example from my previous email toward demonstrating
this. 1+1=2, is not a property of the universe. It is a property of our
natural number system. Our natural number system happens to be pretty
useful for talking about thinks in the universe though. For example,
apples. If I take one apple, and I add another apple, I have two apples.
There's a certain isomorphism, that is interesting and valuable between
the apples and our number system. If I take a raindrop and add another,
however, I still have one raindrop. To talk about this phenomena, we
might create a different formal system, with different rules for addition.
Neither formal system would be fundamentally right, or wrong, nor "a
property of the universe."
I use formal logic all the time. It's what I hope to be studying soon for
my PhD. It's useful, sure but it's not a property of the world, it's a
tool for talking about the world. I don't dispute its usefulness, and in
that I think we agree about this whole more than is immediately evident.
S.
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: Steven Gabriel -- sgabriel@willamette.edu :
: http://www.willamette.edu/~sgabriel :
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: "Sitting quietly doing nothing, :
: Spring comes and the grass grows by itself." :
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