[MD] Annotations to LC

[mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net]

dmb, all,


>
> Tuukka said to dmb and all:
>
> Logic doesn't characterize pure experience. Neither does it characterize
> the relation between experience and concepts. Logic characterizes the
> relation between defined concepts and other defined concepts.
>
>
> dmb replies:
>
> Really? If logic could only operate on the relation between defined   
> concepts, then things like algebra and symbolic logic wouldn't   
> exist. But of course they do exist because logic operates on any   
> kind of sentence or equation, even the ones with undefined terms.


Tuukka:

You are now using the word "undefined" in a different sense that Pirsig
means when he says Quality is "undefined". Indeed, you are committing a
common error of confusing concepts and their extensions. Consider the law
of commutativity of summation, for instance in Peano arithmetic: for all
variables (and thus terms, by one of the axioms of predicate logic) x and
y, x+y equals y+x. The extensions of the variables x and y are indeed
"undefined" in one sense of the word; that is, they are arbitrary. They are
just some values of a domain of some model of Peano arithmetic. But the
concepts x and y, the variables themselves, and any terms substituted in
place of them by the axioms of predicate logic, are defined. They are
variables or terms of the language of Peano arithmetic and that's their
definition, if it needs to be explicitly said.

Now, you may ask: am I committing the same error with RMP's Quality? The
answer is no. Quality is not meant to be an arbitrary element of some
defined domain of a model of some defined logical and/or mathematical
theory. It is meant to be left completely undefined and thus even defining
the concept as part of a logical formula must thus be avoided.

dmb wrote: "Understanding an idea BEFORE criticizing is also a  
necessity, by the way."

Not a logical one, just a necessity. If you think it is a logical one, by
all means formally deduce it from the axioms of pure logic and present me
the proof!


> dmb:
> I think you're bending over backwards to find fault where there   
> isn't any, Tukka. You already admitted that it makes sense to say   
> that concepts follow from experience and that's all it means to say   
> "pure experience logically precedes concepts". The point is clear   
> and there's nothing wrong with the logic of the sentence containing   
> that point.


Tuukka:

I think you're bending over forwards to ignore faults, dmb. Formal logic
and mathematics ARE characterized by the requirement that ALL elements of
well-formed formulas of any formal language of any formal theory are
defined concepts. "Pure experience precedes concepts" is a rhetorical
statement, not a logical one.

I've discussed this topic at length with a logician who is a friend of
mine. He said he liked your answers, like the ones considering radical
empiricism, all up to this point, when you showed you really have no grasp
of formal theories. And even Gabriel Sandu, professor of theoretical
philosophy of the University of Helsinki and an expert in logic, noted in a
mail conversation with me: "Logic uses defined concepts all the time."

Regards,
Tuk