[Avodah] logic

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Thu Nov 17 09:22:16 PST 2016


On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 03:18:59PM +0200, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote:
:> RMA's favorite example is to define a heap.
:> (A) one object is not a heap
:> (B) adding an object to a heap can't change it to a heap

: The examples you give only exists as artifacts of vague language.
: Bald isn't rigorously defined.  If it were, we'd be back to excluded
: middle...

You're assuming the universe is quantized. Most real things are
continua. (And the quantum world itself is definitely non-boolean;
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic>.)

In a world in which all the shades of grey exist, there wil perforce be
problems rigorously defining predicates.

BTW, RMA's "favorite example" is original formulation of the sorites
paradox", one of the 7 classical paradoxes of by Eubulides of Miletus
(4th cent BCE). "Sorites" comes from the ancient Greek word for heap.

In the Concise Encyclopedia of Semantics (pg 1047) the sorites paradox is
indeed blamed on vagueness. It's just that thinking in vague predicates
are necessary, as argued above, since many things in this world are
measured rather than counted.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Live as if you were living already for the
micha at aishdas.org        second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org   time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning



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