Re: [OPE] Dialectics for the New Century

wrighti@acm.org

> Formal logic is synonymous with mathematical logic:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_logic
>  
> Computation is not "more abstract than" mathematics:
> rather, it is a a subject which _is_ mathematics and,
> hence, utilizes formal logic.

Trotsky noted that dialectical logic does not negate formal logic but is
a generalization of it: formal logic is, in a sense, a "special case" of
dialectical logic.

All formal inference systems can be executed by a universal Turing
machine. In a precise sense therefore all formal logic is a special case
of the "logic" of a universal Turing machine.

And Computer Science is definitely not just mathematics.

> Also, the very architecture of the computer is dependent
> on the binary system - by definition, an expression of
> mathematical / formal logic.

You equate computation with "computer", and by that you probably mean
your PC.

Computations can be realized in many kinds of systems; for example, in
our brains, in chemical soups, upon analog devices, upon collections of
people etc.

And some physicists seriously entertain the idea that the basic stuff of
the universe, the "ontology" of the "whole world", is fundamentally
on/off bits.

The more you look into this area the more you will realize that the
notion of "computation" is both as elusive and as general as the concept
of "dialectic". That's because, in some deep sense, they are the same.

In my view it's high-time to move on from an exclusive focus on *natural
language* dialectics and begin to tool-up for the modern age.
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