Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3030 talk.philosophy.misc:1797
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!humu!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Why discuss consciousness and free will? (longish)
Message-ID: <2973@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 9 Jan 89 16:56:48 GMT
References: <9504@bcsaic.UUCP>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 20

From article <9504@bcsaic.UUCP>, by ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis):
"...
" computers, to construct a "predicate calculus".  The underlying assumption,
" which may never have been an explicit hypothesis, is that human language is a
" symbol *system*.  True, language uses symbols, but language is not a symbol
" *system*.  *Arithmetic* is a symbol system.  Algebra makes it explicit; the
" inter-relationships and operations (the *form*) are paramount, the symbols
" are placeholders and spacers.  That's *form*-al logic. 

Formal syntax, you mean.  Formal logic has syntax and semantics as
subdisciplines.

Without granting that there is any fundamental difference between
natural language and formal logic, even if there were, this would
not mean that it was inappropriate to use formal logic in theories
or as a theory of language.  You don't sneer at an accountant who
uses arithmetic that he mistakes dollars for integers.  Just because
theories have symbols doesn't mean they are theories of symbols.

		Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu