Thursday, May 9, 2019

Two Logics #2

A topic that Two Logics does not address is Boolean logic or Boolean algebra, which is the type of logic used by computers. George Boole introduced it about 120 years before Veatch published Two Logics, and Claude Shannon made great use of it for electronic computers 20+ years before Veatch published Two Logics. It has some similarity to the modern or relating logic that Veatch addresses, but he has nothing to say about it in the book.

It seems to me that Boolean logic used in computer circuits should not be subject to what-logic as Veatch calls it. The programmer and the human user should, of course, heed what-logic, but the computer circuits have no need for it. The circuits do not relate meanings to the real world anything like humans do, so what-logic does not apply. Context matters.

The logic of concepts (variables and "objects" in object-oriented programming) represented in computer circuits is much the same way C. I. Lewis described concepts in relating logic. "[I]t being up to us to define our concepts in any way we might choose, packing into them only those notes that we ourselves might decide we wanted them to contain, and leaving out those we do not want" (p. 107).

There may be a better way to articulate this. If one occurs, I shall return.

No comments:

Post a Comment