Eric Kaun wrote:
> "Jan Hidders" <jan.hidders_at_REMOVETHIS.pandora.be> wrote in message
> news:eR_cc.63743$eD5.4200565_at_phobos.telenet-ops.be...
>>
>>The point is that all these *are* in fact based upon a correspondance to
>>language. In some sense that was what the great discovery by Aristotle
>>was: the fact that you can sometimes reason on the basis of only the
>>*form* of statements. Hence Formal logic.
>
> Certainly - since computers can't understand meaning in the way that we can
> (which we ourselves don't understand), it follows that form is about all
> there is, and thus the mechanizability of symbolic logic. I'm not
> downplaying the role of language, but languages that computers understand
> are far different than those we understand. So if we're going to use human
> language as a basis for computing, we have to specify which aspects of it,
> or subset of it, and furthermore impose rules that might not make much
> difference to our comprehension.
I couldn't agree more. I guess the point that I was trying to make is
that this has already been done for a while and there is lot's of
literature on it. The outcome is more or less what we know as the
differenct brances of symbolic logic, the very thing the relational
model is based upon.
Received on Thu Apr 08 2004 - 11:38:37 CDT
