Re: what is a loglang?

On Friday, May 7, 2004, at 12:15 PM, John Cowan wrote:

> Ray Brown scripsit:
>
>> Yep - I was very skeptical at the statement "Any form of intelligence
>> would have exactly the same
>> system of logic we do (Boolean)".
[snip]

> So let's consider something else.  We meet a traveler returning from
> the jungles of Southeast America, or some such place,
No, no - I assumed by "any form of intelligence" it was meant any other
intelligent being [besides Homo Sapiens, i.e. from another planet in,
probably, another solar system.

I know that in science fiction such aliens often have a remarkably good
grasp of Anglo-American and are vaguely hominid & think sort of like us -
but I suspect that at least in some places intelligent life has evolved
very differently. So, I'm afraid, to counter my skepticism the traveler
returning from Southeast America or where-ever else on our planet is no
good.

[snip]

I don't recall mentioning the possibility of holding two contradictions to
be true  - tho Shrödinger's cat comes to mind  :)

I am minded that some very strange things apparently go on at the quantum
level. Aren't there theorists who, e.g. posit the possibility of tri-state
logic: yes ~ no ~ don't know; true ~ false ~ maybe - sort of like in Scot'
s law (unlike English law) we have: guilty ~ innocent ~ not proven?

I've looked at that interesting list Mark gave -
	 http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/nonstbib.htm

but haven't had time to follow up all leads. It does seem that even among
us hominds, as Mark observed, 'there are all sorts of logics, not just
"classical", "standard" or "Boolean" logic.' Who knows what we might find
among real aliens?

>> Do we really have such a deep
>> understanding of our universe that we can categorically state that? I
>> really wonder if in a few centuries time our descendants will look upon
>> the logics of early 21st cent. as we view Aristotelian logic today.
>
> Surely we think Aristotelian logic is limited and archaically formulated,
> but we don't think it's *wrong*, unlike, say, Aristotelian biology or
> physics.
But where in the above did I say Aristotelian logic is *wrong*? Just as we
regard Aristotelian logic as limited and archaically formulated, I think
it not at all improbable that in a few centuries time our descendants will
view our early 2st century formulations as limited and archaic.
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On Friday, May 7, 2004, at 01:50 PM, Philippe Caquant wrote:

> To summarize briefly my (still misty, I agree) opinion
> about various mails on this topic:
>
> - a good deal of "semantical"
'semantic'

> (is this the right word
> ?) concepts could be encoded as variable rules in a
> computerized system, to reflect the way of thinking of
> the users of the logical language.
Umm - not as simple as you seem to suppose. A few of us on this list have
at some time or other been involved with computerized natural language
processing. It's an interesting, often frustrating but always illuminating
experience.

[snip]

> - the reality of the universe is in no way relevant
> when talking about a language.
It depends upon the language.

> A language is made to
> share information, impressions, orders etc, and if
> both interlocutors are totally mad, but share the same
> madness, then the language should be adapted to their
> common madness.
This is all very well if you're discussing natural languages. But this is
the _conlang_ list and, more specifically, the subject line is _loglangs_.
We are discussing languages whose grammatical rules specify an explicit
mapping from surface (phonological) forms to logical forms (propositions).

>  The categories should reflect the
> shared concepts, not the (supposed) reality.
Doesn't logic have something to do with universal reality? ('supposed', I
guess, if you consider the universe to be an illusion) Or do you have some
other meaning for 'logic'?

If I want "to share information, impressions, orders etc" which "reflect
the shared concepts" I have with another person, I'll use a natlang (tho
an artlang such Quenya or Tepa is a possibility if we both knew enough; we
could use a conventional auxlang). There are languages a-plenty for me and
my fellow conversationist; there is no need for any loglang.

The point is that if some one or a group of people decide to formulate a
constructed language whose grammar _explicitly_ maps a formalized system
of logic, there is some other experimental reason. I suspect there are
many different reasons. If you limit language construction to the narrow
dictats of your two sentences above, then you cut out some interesting
conlangs (and not merely loglangs).

[snip]
> So the answer doesn't have to be "it's case A OR case
> B". In Oracle, for ex, you could say: the value is
> NULL, which is neither yes neither no; but they could
> be many more possibilities.
Yep.

Quite - NULL (or whatever you like to call it)- neither 'yes' nor 'no'   ;
)

Ray
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