John F. Sowa wrote:
> Patrick and everybody else who has questions about logic,
>
> I strongly endorse the following point by Pat Hayes:
>
> > To give [Topic Maps or any other notation] such a semantics
> > is not to 'logify' it, or rule out its use by humans (in fact,
> > despite the dark reputation of logic, we found that giving
> > RDF a precise formal semantics actually helped many real live
> > people, including developers, not least by providing quick
> > ways of resolving otherwise interminable debates.)
>
> Yes, indeed. And C. S. Peirce, the inventor of the usual
> algebraic notation for logic, wrote the following
>
> http://www.peirce.org/writings/p119.html
> How to Make Our Ideas Clear
>
> He published this paper in the _Popular Science Monthly_
> in 1878, and the title emphasizes his main point. Following
> is a quotation from it:
>
> The very first lesson that we have a right to demand that
> logic shall teach us is, how to make our ideas clear; and a
> most important one it is, depreciated only by minds who stand
> in need of it. To know what we think, to be masters of our
> own meaning, will make a solid foundation for great and
> weighty thought. It is most easily learned by those whose
> ideas are meagre and restricted; and far happier they than
> such as wallow helplessly in a rich mud of conceptions.
>
> I like the phrase "rich mud of conceptions" -- that is an
> excellent description of all the discussions in this forum
> that are "wallowing helplessly" in some vague notion that
> we need a notation that is not logical. (01)
sounds as if what we need is a tutorial on how to prevent being invited
to parties. (02)
vQ (03)
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