ELEPHANT TO HORSE (with a p.s. to CHRIS on references):
This discussion about fuzzy logic is turning out more interesting than it
ought to be. I think I'll pick out just one or two points to save time and
refocus the discussion. I want particulary to think about whether adhering
to classical logic means that you have to have what Horse calls a 'black and
white' veiw of the world.
I don't think so, because classical logic is perfectly consistent with the
"I don't know" point of veiw, and I have argued that it is in fact the only
logic which can be consistent with the "I don't know" point of veiw, since
fuzzy logic will take the uncertain either/or question and construe it as a
both/and answer: turning an epistemological state into a logical one.
Further, the operation of classical logic can sit perfectly well besides the
mystical intuition that the world beyond language cannot be correctly
described in logical terms. The reason it cannot be perfectly captured is
that it does not contain objects, and not, as fuzzy-logicians pretend, that
it does contain objects, but that those objects are "fuzzy" ones. Oddly,
this connects with what I say about Wagner in another posting (mysticism).
Wagner's objects are pretty fuzzy alright - but I don't think that this
makes them a better decription of the mystical reality beyond words than,
say, Bach's.
HORSE WROTE: 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.
ELEPHANT: I'm at a loss to understand what "contradictory" means, if "True
and False are complementary not contradictory". Perhaps you can explain
this? Perhaps you can also explain how having two logics in place of one is
not an "unnecessary complication"?
HORSE HAD WRITTEN: 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: Look, binary classical logic does not imply a binary description.
There is "I don't know". There is metaphor (whether we can or cannot have a
literal translation of metaphor is an interesting question). There are all
kinds of descriptive devices and states of mind. What's at issue here is
not how many varieties of psychological state there are, or how many ways
there are of expressing insights, but rather how many of these states and
expressions we should regard as truth-values in logic. You want to take the
"I don't know" or and turn it into a formal state in logic. In this, I
maintain, you are taking the paradigm case of a question, and turning it
into a paradigm case of an answer. This has to be wrong, because it takes
away the whole motivation for inquiry. None of the James/Dewey stuff on
value and the pattern of enquiry could possibly make sense if the "I don't
know" of classical logic is turned into one of three "I know"s in fuzzy
logic (True/ False/ True and False). If "true and false" was any kind of
answer, what would be the point of, say, discussing which of us is right
about logic?
HORSE WROTE: 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.
ELEPHANT: So you think I'm a logical posititivist! (This falling of chairs
business is getting tiresome). Accusing someone of that is almost as bad as
shouting across a crowded conference room "Cartesian!". I think I seem to
be a bit of a Platypus for you (my elephantness notwithstanding).
I'll repeat what I said: binary logic does not imply a binary description of
the world. What it implies is a binary description of the *logical* world.
There's more to life than logic. And isn't that just what we are saying,
when we say that "the world consists of a multitude of colours in between
black and white"? Now look, what you're trying to do is to take away this
world-outside-of-logic from me and everyone else, and then give it back to
us nicely formulated in a three value logic (True/False/True and False).
Well, Hell, I don't want it back that way - it certainly isn't what I
started with. What I started was was something unformulable, not for the
lack of a magic third value in logic, but for the lack of object-hood in
that wonderful rainbow between black and white. In this way, fuzzy logic
can't possibly be fuzzy enough for what it's claiming to do. The addition
of the third value replaces a two sided plane with a triangular figure - but
the geometric angularity is still there, now with the added insult of
calling to us proudly, "come, look at my lovely triangle, everything
important about our lives is here!". I don't find this appraoch very
appealling.
ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN: ....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.
HORSE: 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.
ELEPHANT: Well now, you might be right about that - my having no idea what
it is I'm disagreeing with, I mean. You see, all along you and Chris have
been talking about 'True' and 'False' not capturing the whole picture for
logic, and about there being in fuzzy logic this other state or logical
value: 'True and False'; or the "in-between" as you call it, in the passage
below. Well now, if that's not a third truth-value, and if you aren't
proposing a tri-value logic, then I really have no idea at all what it is
you are saying. I don't mean to be rude either, but I have to say that I am
very puzzled by your remark. It seems to me that as soon as I get you
pinned down, as to where you are in this argument, you open some hatch in
the roof and fly off in an escape capsule.
Do you mean that *your* 'fuzzy logic' has nothing at all to do with logical
reasoning, syllogisms, truth tables, symbolic formulation etc? Ok. I can
dig it. Now, could you please tell me what you are talking about?
ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN: 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 WROTE: 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.
ELEPHANT: I think I've said something about this before. It is not naivety
about how the world is constructed to suppose that it conforms to binary
logic, because it is precisely with language operating according to binary
logic that the "constructed" world is constructed. If you are talking of
the world beyond language and logic, then there is no "how the world is
constructed" for you to be talking about. There is only flux. Do you, much
to my astonishment, turn out to be a Kantian noumenalist after all,
beleiving in a (if fuzzy) 'structure of the world' which fuzzy logic is an
attempt to pin down? If so, I don't think your ideas sit well with the
pragmatist outlook of MOQ.
ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN : 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. 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 WROTE: 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.
ELEPHANT: Yes. But why is that? Is it because we are all perfect
reasoners, who happen to reason logically with fuzzy logic, or is it because
we are lots of us fuzzy reasoners, who often have fluid, murky kinds of
'thought', with no sucessful logic in them at all? (Even though language
is an attempt in that direction - if it weren't there would be no point in
it). I know which veiw I prefer. Look, I'm not trying to capture the whole
of human experience in logic: it's you who is trying to do that. I'm not
failing miserably, because I'm not so hasty as to make the attempt.
Don't assume a necessary connection between the manifestos of the logicians
and the logic they hold. Aristotle had a manifesto and it wasn't Plato's.
But it would be hard to think of them as holding to different logics. If
they did, it would seem that any real argument between the two views would
be impossible. Your conception of classical logic is bound up with Prisig's
(justified) criticism of Aristotle. But, I think, what Prisig has to say
about Aristotle fits very well with the Platonic manifesto: subjects and
objects have a dependant being, and that being depends on Quality.
Finally, a quote from Prisig (lila p113, ch 8):
"The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and
economy of explanation."
If you are allowed your "True and False" answer, it seems to me that the
first test will be completely done away with. How can a statement or theory
ever be logically inconsistent, when inconsistency itself is elevated to the
status of a logical value? Any statement whatsoever is "consistent" with
fuzzy logic. I really think that settles the matter.
ttfn
Pzeph
-------------------------------------
A Special PostScript To Chris On References And Stuff....
CHRIS WRITES IN TO SAY:
all I see from this is more smoke, you avoid addressing things -- READ THE
REFS
AND ALSO SAYS:
E you chickened out! :-) predictable in the context of my sending you
reference material IOW somebody elses words not mine but you dont/wont read
them ... and you come up with rubbish re neocortical function etc tsk tsk
what a cop out. you should be ashamed of yourself .. but then I suppose if
you have spent so much time refining a position to then have it threatened
... well .. I suppose you have to back away dont you. Pity. If you dont like
my writing or understand it etc well then at LEAST read the references ...
ELEPHANT IS PUZZLED:
I'm puzzled. Do I need to remind you where we came in, and what made me so
furious about you in the first place? I asked a question, and you,
responing as a great King to some impertinent Subject, sent me away to read
some references, to wit: your own website. Thinking that, given your
confident authority, I must have something to learn from you, I went to the
exact point you sent me. I spent about an hour puzzling over the most
irrelevant, bizarre, and plain self-contradictory peice of literature that
it has ever been my displeasure to have touted at me as the absolute
indubitable truth. I have concluded, not without reason, that you are a
self-absorded dogmatist with little capacity for engagement with, or even
attention to, questions about your position. This has been confirmed by
every response you have given, and your present playground taunting is par
for the course. I have not been afraid of reporting things as I find them,
because it seems to me that tact, in these matters, has not so far done you
any favours. You know that I have had this experience of you, and yet you
suppose that your programme for my education will have some attraction for
me. I think you might conclude that the best possible way for you to
prevent me reading something is for you to recommend it to me, and, in the
interests of my future enlightenment, adopt a tactful silence. This is not
what I expect you to do. Surprise me.
Perhaps we may devise a judgement of Solomon that can give free range to two
gigantic egos. (Never let it be said that I was not prepared, even anxious,
to lower myself to your level.) You can send me a complete list of all the
books and papers I will never read, and, in fair exchange, I can send you a
list of all the books and papers that you will never read. Would that be a
constructive way to proceed?
Let me see now,
on my top tray of current matter I have (besides Prisig):
Josephine Pasternak: Indefinability (a recent acquisition from Denmark)
Pragmatism: (the thayer collection)
A Dictionary of Bible Quotations
A Dictionary of Philosophy (the AN Flew)
N.J.H. Dent: The Moral Psychology of the Virtues
Iris Murdoch: Sartre, Romantic Rationalist
Iris Murdoch: Existentialist and Mystics
Iris Murdoch: Metaphysics as a guide to Morals
Antonaccio (ed.): Iris Murdoch and the search for Human Goodness
(interesting article about Dante from Nussbaum)
Then, on the top shelf of the near array for easy access:
Plato: The complete works
(both as single volume, in translation, and then about a foot's worth of
favourite dialogues in various translations)
Aristotle: Rhetoric, Politics, Nicomachean ethics (never felt tempted to
read these more than once - ought to be got rid of)
The Kirk and Raven edition of the Fragments of the Presocratic Philsophers,
(twice, because the spine on my old copy broke.)
Various monographs on the classics including:
Owen, Sedley, Strauss, Prior, Miller, Cornford, Nettleship, McCabe, Barnes.
Studies in Presocratic Philsophy (a good collection of the classic articles)
Krishna's Dialogue on the Soul, from the Bhagavad Gita (in a small portable
volume)
Ecclesiastes (the same)
The Philosophy of John Dewey (ed. McDermott)
The Philosophy of Time (ed Le Poidevin)
A presocratics reader (small portable volume pub. Hackett)
Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein: On Certainty
Then Below (and to save time I will only list authors):
Russell, Joad, Blackburn, Martin, Dancy, Descartes, Cottingham, Warnock,
Kant (quite a bit here), Leibniz, Neitzsche, Korner, Kierkegaard, Spinoza,
Passmore, Hume, Berkeley, Hodges, Williams, Goldman, Hacking, McNaughton,
Swift, Empson, Ryle, Rouseau, more Dent, Salisbury, Wollheim, Bradley,
Ricard (The Monk and the Philosopher - I think it might be just the book for
you), Thomas (dylan), Coleridge, Joyce, Stoppard, Eliot, Gandhi, Havel, AJP
Taylor, Adenauer, various works of reference, more dictionaries etc....
Then accros the room Novels, beginning with....
O.K.
An Eye For An Eye, making the whole world blind.
A reference for a reference, making the whole world illiterate.
ta ta for now Chris,
Pzeph
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