Hi Chris, Pz & all
First off I'd like to thank Chris for an excellent synopsis of Fuzzy logic - Chris, your
explanation extends very well into general Fuzziness and Fuzzy thinking which I believe are
essential to fully grasp MoQ and it's implications - but that's just my opinion and I'm sure there
are lotsafolk who disagree. Anyway, on with the equine/pachyderm dialogue.....
On 12 Dec 2000, at 2:05, PzEph wrote:
> ELEPHANT TO HORSE RE VAGUELY POPPERIAN:
>
>
> > ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN: Perhaps one of the reasons why fuzzy logic can sometimes
> > help us get by in the world is that the world isn't just our thought-of
> > objects, but something (mystical) beyond them, and which provoked our thinking
> > in the first place.
> >
> > HORSE WROTE: Sounds vaguely Popperian! The "world" contains objects AND
> > thoughts of objects AND mystical somethings beyond them, AND inorganic things
> > before them etc. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that the world is both
> > contained in these these things and these things contain the world. I don't
> > see that there is any problem with both views being correct simultaneously. X
> > contains Y and Y contains X.
> >
> ELEPHANT: Excuse me while I fall off my chair (mental note: must go to the
> circus more often). "Popperian"? It's hard to think of a view more
> distinct from mine.
HORSE:
Quite probably, but when you talk of the world as the world of thoughts of objects then this
seems to suggest a Popperian reference - not that I meant to imply that you are a
Popperian!!
> Your comment though, is understandable, as to save you
> from making it I ought really to have inserted an "also" between "but" and
> "something (mystical?)". Sorry about that - I hope the clarification helps.
HORSE:
Yep!
> BTW, your introduction of container-contained relations is a bit left field.
> I think the idea that "X contains Y and Y contains X" is *very odd*, and
> something ridiculed in Lila: pp62 - 63 near the end of 4..
HORSE:
Pirsig is, I believe, using irony in the context of the passage to which you refer. I had hoped
you would pick up on Pirsigs idea of intellectual patterns contained by biological patterns
and intellectual patterns containing biological patterns - can't remember where it appears in
the book (does anyone else? - Platt, Rog).
> > ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN: However, I think it is a mistake to think of the
> > fuzzy logic being a real logic, either of the mystical reality (because that
> > doesn't contain the discrete objects which the fuzzy logic fuzzily relates),
> > or of the objectified world.
> >
> > HORSE WROTE: Excuse me? Fuzzy logic isn't a real logic? What is it that
> > constitutes real then? Obviously it doesn't relate to mysticism as mysticism
> > is not contained within Intellectual patterns of value and fuzzy logic is an
> > instance of these Intellectual patterns. Unless you're referring to the
> > objectified world in some special sense which I've missed then I fail to
> > understand what you mean when you say that fuzzy logic doesn't relate to the
> > objectified world.
> >
> ELEPHANT: I'll try to explain my thought. It seems to me that the idea that
> I am both writing this post and not writing it at the same time doesn't make
> any sense. I can think of all sorts of ways one might go about rescuing
> some sense in the idea that I am writing it and not writing it at the same
> time, but all of them involve specifying different levels of self, or
> different times considered together as one time, or otherwise redividing the
> world so that the law of non-contradiction still holds.
HORSE:
If you've read Chris' post on Fuzzyness then you'll see that what you've said creates
unnecessary complication. Using classical logic a statement such as:
"I am typing an email at a computer keyboard"
is Either True OR False and in a particular context this is fine.
But the same statement considered from a multivalent logic perspective shows that it is
BOTH True AND False - False in this sense meaning that it is not exclusively True. This does
not mean that there is a contradiction involved, only that True and False are complementary
not contradictory.
> Indeed, reflecting
> further, it is almost as is the original division of the world into separate
> objects was a device to permit the law of non-contradiction, and the law of
> the divided middle, to hold. Perhaps we can drop the "almost", because the
> hard edges of classical logic are so fantastically useful to us that it is
> hard to conceive of doing without them.
HORSE:
Who said anything about doing without them? Not me. Bivalent logic is a special case that
has it's uses but it is not the whole of logic - it is but one part.
> Yes, you are someone who thinks
> that one can do with out them, have a ' take it or leave it' attitude to
> these hard edges, treat them as one useful tool amongst others. My point to
> you would be this: when you are standing before your intellectual toolkit
> and thinking about which tool might be the right one for this particular
> job, what kind of logic do you use then?
HORSE:
Quite obviously Fuzzy logic - I'd have to be insane, or have very little understanding of
Fuzzyness to say otherwise.
> You can call this a 'metalogic' if
> you like, but I find the expression otiose: logic is precisely that which is
> meta - that's what the word 'logic' means - pertaining to all logoi
> (descriptions) whatsoever. Anything local, used here but not there, isn't a
> logic, but a logos.
HORSE:
But as I said above, Bivalent logic is not the whole of Logic only a part of it. Logic may
pertain to all descriptions but it is certainly not the case that description are of necessity
binary - additionally, it is not the case that logic (any or all) can provide a complete
description of the world, far from it. You seem to be employing a circular logic here. :-)
>
> > ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN: The reason for my latter comment is that one thing Chris
> > has right is that it is our wielding of dichotomies which makes such a world
> > of objects possible, and a fuzzy dichotomy is a contradiction in terms.
> >
> > HORSE WROTE: Maybe you or Chris would elaborate further on this point.
> >
> ELEPHANT: Happy to. The useful thing, you see, about a dichotomy, is that
> it is a dichotomy: a cutting in two. Classical logic wields a knife. Fuzzy
> logic wields a paddle. Paddles are all very well in their place (in a
> canoe), but if paddles were all that were ever wielded the world world be
> about as divided up as the Mississippi River. There wouldn't be any such
> thing as a Canoe, and there wouldn't be any such thing as a Paddle: it would
> all be just flux.
HORSE:
If you choose to believe that classifying the world in Black and White terms is the best way
then you go right ahead and do it. What you say above is fine for something like Logical
Positivism - and again Logical Positivism has its uses - but for most people the world
consists of a multitude of colours in between black and white. Intellectual systems that insist
that everything can be forced into one of two boxes inevitably fail.
> So you see, fuzzy logic depends on classical logic, and
> as such can only be a local tool, whereas classical logic can be universal
> (which is it's whole point). Repeating what I said earlier, this means that
> classical logic could be described as the metalogic, and that understanding
> 'logic' as I do, for me fuzzy 'logic' is merely a logos, not a logic.
HORSE:
Actually I don't see that Fuzzy Logic depends on classical logic. What I do see is that for a
great number of years (centuries in fact) bivalent logic dominated intellect and its creations.
This not now the case although those that adhere to the classical view do not like this new
state of affairs. All I can say is that if your understanding of 'logic' is limited to classical logic
(by which I assume you mean bivalent logic) then you could do worse than to read a wider
range of texts.
<SNIP>
> > ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN: As an afterthought, and to prevent you arguing that
> > since fuzzy logic is really very practical we should think of it as true, I
> > think you ought to acknowledge that fuzzy logic can make life more difficult
> > as often as it makes it easier, more often in fact.
> >
> > HORSE WROTE: The practicality of Fuzzy Logic is not an indication of its truth
> > value as there is no need to think of it as either true or false - it is a
> > valuable tool when used correctly, nothing more.
> >
> ELEPHANT: I had the impression I was talking to someone who thought that
> truth was a species of the good.
HORSE:
Precisely why I prefer multivalent logic. Truth is a species of good but it is not the case that
there is only Truth or Falsity(?). There are many truths.
>
> > HORSE WROTE: As I said in my last post Binary Logic (something is EITHER
> > True OR False) is contained within Fuzzy logic - True/False or 0/1 are the
> > extremes - but fuzzy logic also introduces values between True and False. I
> > assume this is what Chris means by his statement: "yes -- the excluded
> > middle is more the realm of possibles than just 'null'."
>
> ELEPHANT: Your case that: [fuzzy logic (binary logic)] is supported by what?
> That the latter has two values whereas the former has those two plus a
> third? That appears to support the conclusion that the Reliant Robin (an
> infamous british car with only three wheels) is contained in the Buick. I
> beg to differ.
HORSE:
I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about here. Fuzzy logic = trivalent logic!!! A
Reliant Robin is contained in a Buick !!!!
>
> Secondly, it is the "I don't know" of classical logic that is
> paradigmatically the "realm of possibilities". The whole point of the third
> value in fuzzy logic is that it is a value, an answer to the question "what
> is the case", an affirmative cocksure "I know!", which puts it firmly in the
> realm of actualities, not possibilites. And, as I have already pointed out,
> this kind of answer is of great danger to the continued stimulation and
> development of enquiry: it precisely closes down all the really valuable
> intellectual possibilities.
What 3rd value in fuzzy logic??? Do you have any understanding of Fuzzy logic at all - I
honestly don't mean to be rude of insulting here but it seems that you are disagreeing with a
particular position without any knowledge of what you are disagreeing with.
> >
> > HORSE WROTE: I acknowledge that fuzzy logic introduces additional levels of
> > complexity but I don't see how this can be construed as making life more
> > difficult - I would have thought that it shows that the world is more
> > complex than just a series of True OR False statements. It does mean that
> > the bipolar view is for most purposes an incorrect view based on an
> > artificial premise thus damaging the simplistic either/or view, but that's
> > life :-)
>
> ELEPHANT: I don't think the fact that the fact that the world escapes
> satisfactory description in classical logic can show that the world is more
> complex than our description, because complexity is a function of
> discreteness, and the discreteness is a function of the description.
HORSE:
Classical logic assumes that the world is or it is not a particular way - there is no in-between.
This assumes a certain naivety in how the world is constructed and attempts to reduce the
beauty and complexity of the world to one of two states whilst denying that it is not possible
for any other state to exist - it has defined away anything other than the True or False state of
the world and denied that anything more complex can exist.
> What lies beyond electrons and quarks and all the rest isn't some ever more
> "complex" world, but Quality. I am very far from holding a simplistic
> either/or view, because I certainly do not believe that a perfect
> description of the world in terms of classical logic is or could be
> possible.
Glad to hear it - you had me worried for a while :-)
> I simply maintain that this is the only logic we have worthy of
> the name. The failure of language coexists with it's indispensability.
HORSE:
The irony here is that language is a fuzzy system of enormous complexity (words have
multiple meanings without contextual reference) and that classical logic was designed to
simplify and particularize language. It works fine with mathematics and some areas of
science but elsewhere it fails miserably.
> You might like to take a look at my quotation from Pirsig in my posting on
> Mysticism.
Fair enough.
See Ya
Horse
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:54 BST