Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!riacs!danforth From: danforth@riacs.edu (Douglas G. Danforth) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Reasoning Paradigms Message-ID: <1990Oct19.195845.8486@riacs.edu> Date: 19 Oct 90 19:58:45 GMT References: <9963@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> Sender: news@riacs.edu (James A. Woods) Organization: RIACS, NASA Ames Research Center Lines: 22 In jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy) writes: >As >a branch of mathematics, logic is grounded in formal semantics as >Tarski and others have described, i.e. it has been made independent >of the thought processes that motivated its development. If Dr. McCarthy means that logic is now a thought process that is different from earlier less precise thought processes then I agree. If, however, he means that logic is now independent of all thought processes and that it somehow stands outside of "thought" and has an existence (in some Platonic sense) of its own then I disagree. If all intelligent life ceased to exist then what becomes of logic? Would it be the marks on pages of books fluttering in the wind of silent planets? Logic exists in the "social sea" of living creatures. -- Douglas G. Danforth (danforth@riacs.edu) Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS) M/S 230-5, NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035