Re: Are there things that don't evolve?

Dave,

I can see that you really love logic.

Here is the point, my **only** point, one last time before I give up this
attempted communication:

Do you think that the mathematical logic that is inherent in nature is
evolving? As a theoretical physicist I can assure you that it is not.

All electrons have half-integral spin. All particles with half-integral spin
have wavefunctions that are anti-symmetric with respect to particle exchange.
 Therefore, all electrons have wavefunctions that are anti-symmetric with
respect to particle exchange. Nature didn't need permission from human logicians
before this could be true. It was already true for about 13.7 billion years
before humans arrived on the scene. I don't care to quibble about how this
feature of nature fits into any formal logic system (or fails to fit). The
simple fact is that it is inherently true of nature that a causal relation "A \in
B" and another causal relation "B \in C" ensures the condition "A \in C".
This is a fact of nature which illustrates the essential logic of nature. It is
NOT evolving.

We could not develop any physics if the universe were irrational and
incomprehensible, or if rationality could evolve so that it was essentially different
in one era of the universe compared to another era. The rationality and
comprehensibility of nature is **not** evolving. This is an essential thing about
reality, not a formal logic system developed by humans. I am not, nor ever
have been, talking about formal logic systems.

God bless,
Phil

In a message dated 3/26/2006 10:54:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
dfsiemensjr@juno.com writes:
I am responding to both of Phil's recent posts, copied below.

You have come up with a perverse silent assumption to buttress your position.
Only if what is now valid becomes invalid do we have the required shift
relative to Zermelo and Quine. But the development of logic does not entail such an
inversion. Since logic is not that familiar to most, let me give a different
illustration. Newton's gravitational discoveries were not eliminated by
Einstein's general relativity, which in turn will not be upended by M theory or
whatever unified field theory eventually holds sway.

I noted that there are three Aristotelian calculi. What is valid in the
simplest, which is what passes for Aristotelian logic or syllogistic, is also valid
in the two advanced modal calculi. Because of differences in form, what is
valid in syllogistic is not valid in the common propositional or sentential
calculus. Also, there are valid deductions in the modal logics which are not valid
in simple syllogistic. That does not make them invalid, just recognizes that
they is not testable by the different set of rules.

There are arithmetics in which 4+4=4, xor 4+4=3, xor 4+4=2, xor 4=4=1 holds,
and 4+4=8 does not. These and many other sets of numbers can be generated by
modifying Peano's postulates. They do what numbers are expected to do formally,
but not for balancing checkbooks, except by determining that the arithmetic
in the checkbook entries is correct.

The syllogism that you sent to Jim is not a syllogism. There is no way that
it can be formulated to fit the correct Aristotelian or degenerate Renaissance
versions of the rules. It is informally valid. However, there have been a
number of studies on decision making which indicate that the processes people
actually use are often faulty. Indeed, you illustrate this in your attempt to
refute my claim.
Dave
Received on Tue Mar 28 02:05:44 2006