🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1940@uoregon.uoregon.edu>, Mark VandeWettering writes:
> 	Mathematics suffers from exactly the same problems as
> 	programming languages: ideas get muddled in notation.

This is silly!  Mathematical formalisms provide you with tools to define
and reason about your ideas in a precise and unambiguous manner.  If
someone can't use these tools effectively, the problem is with him, not
with mathematics.  Just because I can write unintelligible code in Lisp
or Prolog doesn't make them poor languages; just because I can flatten
my thumb with a hammer doesn't make the hammer a bad tool.

In article <11526@ut-sally.UUCP>, nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
> It's much worse than that.  The basic notation -- and therefore the thought
> processes it fosters -- describes a system of "eternal truth", usually
> shown by the equals sign ( = ).  It not only says stuff on each side is
> equivalent; it implies it always has been, and always will be.  Whatever
> process change is needed must be artificially imposed from outside.

That depends on the kind of system you're working with.  First order
predicate logic won't let you reason (directly) about change, but try the
various temporal, modal and dynamic logics that are around.

-- 
Saumya Debray		CS Department, University of Arizona, Tucson

     internet:   debray@arizona.edu
     uucp:       {allegra, cmcl2, ihnp4} !arizona!debray