Re: [OPE] Dialectics for the New Century

davez@kth.se

on 2008-04-06 16:49 GERALD LEVY wrote:
> > I was speaking of logic proper, as a in 'logical system', which is a
> > formal language and a set of axioms and rules from which one deduces
> > statements.
>  
>  
> Yes, but the issue is whether capitalism can be accurately described as
> being a 'logical system'  using the definition you give above.

Well, that was not the original issue for me. I was just wondering 
whether there really is such a thing as 'dialectical logic' (as given 
above).

But the question you raise is interesting too. I'm skeptical that it is 
possible to accurately describe capitalism as a logical system. It seems 
to require a tremendous amount of compression.

Certain aspects could be modeled in this way, such as commodity exchange 
and debt and credit creation which Paul C has opened up through his 
research. In that framework, he can deduce certain consequences when 
agent A purchases a commodity from agent B and so on.

On the other hand I am more optimistic that some very general laws of 
capitalism can be modeled algorithmically as Ian Wright's work suggests. 
Perhaps the computer scientists on the list can answer whether an 
algorithmic description is equivalent to a classical logical system.

>
> There is _more than_ one logic within capitalism: e.g.  there is a 
> logic of
> capital and a logic of the working-class  (Mike L).

I have a real hard time to conceive what, say, the 'logical system of 
the working class' possibly could mean.

> > If it can be expressed in words then it can be  expressed in strings
> > of symbols too.
>  
>  
> I doubt that is true, but how would we test it?
>  

Jerry, you are reading it right now.

//Dave Z
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