- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 18:36:11 -0600
- To: "Smith, Ned" <ned.smith@intel.com>
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
>I'd like to find good concise tutorial material for >logic & proof disciplines. I've found WikiPedia[1] at Ohio State to >be a good resource. It doesn't assume the reader is a logician. >However it lacks information on the mechanics of proofs. I'd like to find good concise tutorial material for quantum electrodynamics, which is written in plain English and doesn't assume that the reader has any math beyond linear algebra; but I don't expect to find it. Some things just do require a certain minimal level of technical savvy. >I expect for semantic web vision to be realized, proof mechanics must be >accessible to the average developer/web professional. Proof mechanics?? I don't think so. We hope that the machines will handle this kind of thing, surely. What is more likely to be useful is a basic grasp of theories of meaning, and maybe a certain ability to 'think logically', where that is hard to define exactly but can be taught to non-mathematical undergraduates, and about half of them get it eventually. I think the essential key to this 'thinking logically' is to learn to mentally stand a little aloof from the words in an argument, in order to *not* read the 'usual' meanings of the word forms. You kind of have to put your everyday common sense on one side, and pretend that you know nothing except what the words say, exactly. It takes time and some native talent to develop this skill. We don't expect that people can write Java or even HTML without doing some hard work first. Why would you expect logic to be different? >HTML and the browser >made the Internet more accessible when commandline processors to things like >gopher, ftp and smtp were the norm. > >Does the list recommend resources in addition to[1]? > >[1] http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Larrys_Text I really would not recommend this, to be honest. Not to criticize it, but it is aimed at philosophy students. Almost everything in this is irrelevant to the kind of competence that one needs, and much of it is actively misleading (particularly the emphasis - common in intro. philosophy courses - on 'natural language' arguments rather than formal logics.) For example, machine inference systems have not used rules like modus ponens since the early 1960s. Pat Hayes -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2001 19:36:17 UTC