[lit-ideas] Re: Imagination and maths [and maybe more.....]
- From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:03:22 -0500
Robert Paul writes:
: Not all of us accept the Laws of Logic of Aristotle to be Absolute Truth.
: Quantum and Astro Physics would quarrel with the excluded middle, etc. Logi
: c
: may need to be re-defined/described.
: --------------------------------------
: Modern logic is not Aristotelian and hasn't been since the great work of Freg
: e
: in the late 19th century. Stoic logic is closer to modern propositional logic
: in
: that it deals not just with classes of things (the subjects and predicates of
: Aristotelian logic) but with entire sentences, and with logical constants suc
: h
: as 'or,' etc.
:
: However, I'm not sure how quantum physics 'quarrels' with the law of the
: excluded middle.
I suspect that the reference is to the example of Schroedinger's Cat,
which is in a middle state where it cannot be said to be either alive
or dead.
The people who really quarrel with the excluded middle are those
mathematicians called "intuitionists," who will not, as I recall
accept existence proofs that depend on the law of the excluded
middle.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
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