Re: Review of FLD

Michael Kifer wrote:
> On Mon, 18 May 2009 15:55:06 -0400
> Chris Welty <cawelty@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "A countably infinite set of quantifiers...where n ≥ 1"
>>
>> It seems strange to include the variables as part of the set of quantifiers. 
>> WHy aren't the quantifiers just Exists, Forall, ...
> 
> Not strange at all. Are you proposing to define a special language for defining
> quantifiers?
> Quantifiers can be very general with all kinds of variables in various places.
> For instance, how would you define bounded quantifiers?  You would need to
> invent a separate sublanguage, but this sublanguage might turn out to be too
> restrictive. What do you do then? Reconvene the WG to extend FLD?
> Sounds like a huge complication with no visible benefits.
> 
> Remember that the presentation syntax allows one to "unpack" the variables from
> the syntax, so the definition is just a general formal device.

Oh, I see the mistake I was making.  I was trying to interpret the quantifier at 
a meta level - for some reason I was thinking of FLD in this one case as a 
language language.  This one makes sense now.


-- 
Dr. Christopher A. Welty                    IBM Watson Research Center
+1.914.784.7055                             19 Skyline Dr.
cawelty@gmail.com                           Hawthorne, NY 10532
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty

Received on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 03:18:05 UTC