We are happy to invite you to the symposium Logic and Culture organized by the VVL (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Logica en Wijsbegeerte der Exacte Wetenschappen) which will take place
Friday April 8, 2011
11.00-17.00
Hoog Brabant (how-to-get-there), Utrecht
11.00 | Dov Gabbay | Future Oriented Determination of Entities in Talmudic Logic | |
12.00 | lunch and general meeting | ||
13.00 | Sara Uckelman | Logic and Interaction in the Middle Ages | |
14.00 | tea and coffee | ||
14.30 | Michiel Leezenberg | Logic in Islamitic Thought | |
15.30 | tea and coffee | ||
16.00 | Henk Barendregt | Attention to consciousness and corollaries |
11.00--12.00
Dov Gabbay
(King's College London, UK)
Title:
Future Oriented Determination of Entities in Talmudic Logic
Abstract:
Ordinary dynamic action logics deal with states and actions upon
states. The actions can be deterministic or non-deterministic,
but it is always assumed that thepossible results of the actions
are clear cut.
Talmudic logic deals with actions (usually legally meaningful
actions which can change the legal status of an entity) which may
be not clear cut and need clarifications. The clarification is
modelled by public announcement which comes at a later time after
the action has taken place. The model is further complicated by
the need to know what is the status of formulas at a time before
the results of the action is clarified, as we do not know at which
state we are in. Talmudic logic treats such states much like the
quantum superposition of states and when clarification is available
we get a projection onto a pure state. The Talmudic lack of clarity
of actions arises from applying an action to entities defined using
the future, like
`Let the man who will win the jackpot in lottery next week be the
sole heir in my will now'.
We need to wait a week for the situation to clarify. There is also
the problem of legal backwards causality, as this man, if indeed
he exists, unaware of his possible good fortune, may have himself
meanwhile donated all his property to a charity.
This paper will offer a model and a logic which can represent
faithully the Talmudic reasoning in these matters.
We shall also see that we get new types of public announcement
and quantum action logics.
13.00--14.00
Sara Uckelman (UvA)
Title:
Logic and Interaction in the Middle Ages
Abstract:
Logic is traditionally viewed as a single-person enterprise, with
"logician" conjuring up images of an academic sitting alone at his
desk, scribbling proofs and theorems on a piece of paper. But
recently, there has been a shift in emphasis in logic research from
static, monological systems to dynamic, dialogical systems, where
logical reasoning is a type of interaction between two or more
players in a game. This idea is, however, not new: This interactive
approach to logic and inference was the focus of one of the primary
innovations of logicians in the High Middle Ages (13th-15th C) in
Western Europe. We discuss the role of logic in medieval society,
both academic and ecclesiastic, and introduce medieval theories of
obligationes, a type of logical disputation game, to illustrate
the dialogical and multi-player character of logic in the Middle Ages.
14.30--15.30
Michiel
Leezenberg (UvA)
Title:
Logic in Islamitic Thought
Abstract:
In classical Islamic civilization, logic knew some
gifted students, and had ardent supporters as well
as fierce opponents. In this contribution, I will
briefly discuss the changing character and status
of logic in the premodern Muslim world. Peripatetic
philosophers made great efforts towards further refining
Aristotelian syllogistic; but there was also an
anti-Aristotelian undercurrent basing itself on
the Stoic-inspired logic that could be found in speculative
theology (kalâm) and jurisprudence (fiqh).
Inspired by this undercurrent, the twelfth-century thinker
Shihâb al-Dîn al- Suhrawardî developed a notion of
`knowledge by presence'(`ilm al-hudûrî'), which displays
some intriguing similarities with David Kaplan's notion
of direct reference. I will conclude with some observations
of logic's Werdegang in the Muslim world. Conventional
wisdom has it that logic, along with philosophy and the
natural sciences, disappeared from the Islamic in the
thirteenth century at the latest; but in fact,
Aristotelian syllogistic continued to be studied by
religious scholars for many centuries; and in the Shi’ite world,
it never disappeared at all. Recent research suggests
that the demise of interest in logic in the Sunni world is,
in fact, of a very recent date.
16.00--17.00
Henk Barendregt (RU)
Title:
Attention to consciousness and corollaries
Abstract:
This talk is about what is arguably the essence of
Buddhism. Consciousness always has an object and a state. Like for
Turing Machines, the state is of essential importance: it determines
what is our behaviour, the next object, and next state. There are
positive and negative states, depending whether suffering decreases or
increases. Meditation has as goal to improve states, either by
increasing positive states (concentration meditation) or by decreasing
negative states (insight meditation). The way to reach this is by
increasing attention in the form of concentration, the ability keep
focussed on an object, and mindfulness, the ability to know where our
attention is. One milestone of insight meditation consists of being
able to see that consciousness is a discrete (pulsating) deterministic
process. This goes against our belief in agency, the illusion that we
are in control of things. As a result the practitioner precieves fear,
danger, and disenchantment. The next milestone, requiring work, is to
obtain temporary equanimity about the mentioned phenomena. After that
the next milestone, obtained though 'surrendering', is to see that our
clinging to agency is unnecessary. There is nothing to defend, as
agency is an illusion.
This has far reaching consequences for our being in the world. It
increases peace, with oneself, others and the universe. The
reason for this is that without the need to defend the non-existing
agency, provides a considerably increased degree of freedom. As
further corollaries there are insights in the scientific view on
consciousness. It unifies the Simon-Newell and connectionist views on
intelligence. Moreover, it has led to a better understanding of the
role of the cerebrospinal fluid for mind states.