From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Tue Nov 29 2005 - 17:59:36 EST
The below misunderstands Chaitins point. It is that no
deductions can contain more information than is included
in the premises.
The claims of dialectical logic to be able to produce
information from nowhere hide the fact that hidden
presuppositions are sneaked in the back door, from
our existing knowledge of the world.
-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Andrew Brown
Sent: 28 November 2005 10:53
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] abstraction and surprise
We have discussed previously Chiatin's point that premises cannot
contain as much info as reality. This seems to me to make a research
program entirely based on linear logic doomed to failure. We have to
look elsewhere and dialectics, a logic of content, not just form, fits
the bill. The idea is that the starting point (the dialecical equivalent
of the 'premises') does *imply* its own further development, it has
implicit conditions of existence. This is not some sort miracle but it
occurs simply because the starting point is an abstraction from the
system as a whole, and cannot exist as such an abstraction. E.g. the
commodity as the general form of wealth implies money, which (arguably)
implies capital, which implies exploitation, etc.
Of course each development is a surprise. Any other way we wouldn't be
learning anything, beyond what we already know!
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L on behalf of Paul Cockshott
Sent: Mon 28/11/2005 09:14
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Cc:
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] abstraction and surprise
And I take his point in appealing to a logic of
exposition is exactly to show that if we keep stumbling over surprises,
as VFT finds in Capital, ch. 1, then we have a problem. Or is that
just with a logic that is linear? That is, supposing a presentation
that was dialectical, could we find the insufficiency of each stage to
comprehend its presuppositions a kind of surprise that drove forward the
immanent logic of the argument so that it constituted a move from
surprise to surprise, dialectically sublated, so to speak?
Howard what do you mean by a linear logic?
Do you mean the same thing as a monotonic logic?
I am skeptical that the Hegelian arguments are logical
developments from a given
starting point. Wherever you have surprise, you have new
information.
This must have been introduced from outside as a hidden
additional
premise.
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