John Mikes wrote:
> Brent wrote:
> "...But if one can reconstruct "the rest of the world" from these
> simpler domains, so much the better that they are simple...."
>
> Paraphrased (facetiously): you have a painting of a landscape with
> mountains, river, people, animals, sky and plants. Call that 'the
> totality' and /select the animals as your model/ (disregarding the rest)
> even you continue by Occam - reject the non-4-legged ones, to make it
> (even) simpler. ((All you have is some beasts in a frame))
> Now try to *"reconstruct"* the 'rest of the total' ONLY from those
> remnant 'model-elements' dreaming up (?) mountains, sunshine, river etc.
> _from nowhere_, not even from your nonexisting fantasy, or even(2!) as
> you say: from the /_Occam-simple_/, i.e. as you say: from those few
> 4-legged animals, - to make it even simpler.
> Good luck.
So you've chosen the wrong "simpler domain". If you had chosen red, green,
blue, in small areas and increments of intensity (aka "pixels") you could have
reproduced the painting.
> You must be a 'creator', or a 'cheater', having at least seen the *total
> *to do so.
That's the difference between "reconstruct" and "construct".
Brent
>You cannot /build up/ unknown complexity from its simple
> parts - you are restricted to the (reduced?) inventory you have - in a
> synthesis, (while in the analysis you can restrict yourself to a choice
> of it. )
>
> John
>
> On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden
> <mailto:meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>> wrote:
>
>
> John Mikes wrote:
> > Isn't logical inconsistency = insanity? (Depends how we formulate the
> > state of being "sane".)
>
> As Bertrand Russell pointed out, if you are perfectly consistent you
> are either
> 100% right or 100% wrong. Human fallibility being what it is, don't
> bet on
> being 100% right. :-)
>
> In classical logic, an inconsistency allows you to prove every
> propositon. In a
> para-consistent logic the rules of inference are changed (e.g. by
> restoring the
> excluded middle) so that an inconsistency doesn't allow you to prove
> everything.
>
> Graham Priest has written a couple of interesting books arguing that
> all logic
> beyond the narrow mathematical domain leads to inconsistencies and
> so we need to
> have ways to deal with them.
>
> > Simplicity in my vocabulary of the 'totality-view' means mainly
> to "cut"
> > our model of observation narrower and narrower to eliminate more and
> > more from the "rest of the world" (which only would complicate
> things)
> > from our chosen topic of the actual interest in our observational
> field
> > (our topical model).
> > Occam's razor is a classic in such simplification.
>
> And so is mathematical logic and arithmetic. But if one can
> reconstruct "the
> rest of the world" from these simpler domains, so much the better
> that they are
> simple.
>
> Brent Meeker
>
> > John M
> >
> > On 8/18/08, *Bruno Marchal* <marchal.domain.name.hidden
> <mailto:marchal.domain.name.hidden>
> > <mailto:marchal.domain.name.hidden <mailto:marchal.domain.name.hidden.ac.be>>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 18 Aug 2008, at 03:45, Brent Meeker wrote:
> >
> > > Sorry. I quite agree with you. I regard logic and
> mathematics
> > as our
> > > inventions - not restrictions on the world, but
> restrictions we
> > > place on how we
> > > think and talk about the world. We can change them as in
> para-
> > > consistent logics.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I think it depends of the domain of inquiry or application.
> > Para-consistent logic can be interesting for the laws and in
> natural
> > language mind processing, but hardly in elementary computer
> science or
> > number theory.
> >
> > Then recall that any universal machine, enough good in the art of
> > remaining correct during introspection, discovers eventually
> at least
> > 8 non classical logics (the arithmetical hypostases) most of them
> > being near "paraconsistency" (by Godel's consistency of
> inconsistency)
> > making the most sane machine always very near insanity.
> > And so easily falling down.
> >
> >
> >
> > Bruno
> >
> >
> >
> > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
> <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
>
>
>
>
>
> >
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Received on Wed Aug 20 2008 - 15:14:44 PDT