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From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Smullyan's Forever Undecided
Message-ID: <1412@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-May-87 14:39:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1412
Posted: Mon May 25 14:39:46 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 28-May-87 06:44:15 EDT
References: <8705201819.AA05586@brahms.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 26

In article <8705201819.AA05586@brahms.Berkeley.EDU> obnoxio@brahms.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>Now, I wonder what [Smullyan] could do for an encore.  Intuitionistic logic?

     In his popular books, Smullyan seems to be trying to give general
readers an intuitive understanding of logic, with (I assume) the goal
of trying to show readers how logic really does relate to human
reasoning.  I would therefore think that he would approach intuitionism
only if he thought it had some significance to practical reasoning.
As far as I know, Smullyan has not displayed any interest in
intuitionism in his technical writing, except as a mathematically
interesting formal system.

     Perhaps he could work some "intuitionist" characters into his
next book -- like the "monochrome chess players" he worked into 
_The Chess Puzzles of Sherlock Holmes_.

>[And if any intuitionists out there are offended, well, then, good!  Post
> something!]

     I guess I approach intuitionism in much the same way as does
Smullyan.  It's interesting to explore, but I'm not too concerned
about what kind of logic I "believe" in.

--Jamie.
...!seismo!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with"