🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5400@megaron.arizona.edu>, debray@arizona.edu (Saumya Debray) writes:
> In article <1940@uoregon.uoregon.edu>, Mark VandeWettering writes:
> > 	Mathematics suffers from exactly the same problems as
> > 	programming languages: ideas get muddled in notation.
> 
> 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.
> 

Thank you for making my point so clearly.  The original discussion concerned
the use of mathematics as a programming language, pro and con, not logics
that use mathematics as a basis.  The original Fortran, for example, tried to 
look as much like formal mathematics as possible, but had to introduce many new
"non-mathematical" concepts and operations in order to be a useful programming
language. I'm sure that mathematics would have been used then, had it been
considered suitable.








-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU