The logic of Buddhist philosophy • Hacker News Board

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#51

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 08, 2014, 2:47 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #41

throwaway13qf85 wrote: post #5

In case anyone is turned off by the expectation of wishy-washy flim-flam, it's worth noting that Graham Priest may be a professor of philosophy, but is most well known for his work in logic, particularly in non-standard logics (i.e. not propositional or predicate logic) that allow non-boolean truth values, or weaken or remove some of the axioms of classical logic. I assume that what's relevant here will be his work o…

Don't immutable data structures give us most of the benefits? Clojure, for example, approaches this by preferring values over hidden, mutable state (e.g. classes). We see libraries like Om take advantage of the fact that comparing two complex structures (e.g. a hash map) is simply a reference equality test. http://clojure.org/state http://swannodette.github.io/2013/12/17/the-future-of-javasc...

[deleted]

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#52

Post by xmonkee » Thu, May 08, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #39

The logic of Buddhist philosophy: emotional attachment to and/or desire of impermanent things has the potential to result in dissatisfaction, as impermanent things are impermanent. It's hardly rocket science. Desire nothing, and you'll never never feel the dissatisfaction of not getting what you want. Be attached to nothing, and you'll never feel the pain of losing something. Some quotes by emperor Marcus Aurelius, o…

This is a rather gross oversimplification. What you state is true, and is in fact the essence of the first 2 noble truths, but that's hardly the meat of "the logic of buddhism". The hardest attachment is that to the self, and the hardest realization is that the self itself is impermanent. To have the "right view" of the self, one has to understand the illusory nature of phenomena and the paradoxial nature of awareness itself. Awareness, is one of those things about which none of the following can be said: 1) that is exists, 2) that is doesn't exist, 3) that is both exists and doesn't exist, and 4) that is neither exists nor doesn't exist.

Buddhism is very simple, but at the same time it can take "many lifetimes" to achieve true understanding of it.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#53

Post by dpierce9 » Thu, May 08, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #15

I would have enjoyed this article if it dropped the Buddhism and kept the math. Alternate logics are interesting, but you tend to be able to reduce them into each other in the same way that universal turing machines can simulate each other. They don't add new functionality, they add succinctness. So it's really strange to me to frame them as totally different philosophies . For example, it is the case that self-refer…

It is simply not true that multi-valued logics collapse into two-valued logics.

While it is true that you can assign indeterminate statements {true,false} and call it a third value, logic is more than assignments of truth-values to statements, it is also rules of inference for that formal system. The rules of inference are the driving force behind paraconsistent logics and the rules of inference are very different.

One motivation is the explosivity of contradictions in a formal system. Consider a paradox of humility: I believe of each of my individual beliefs that it is true, I believe all of the logical consequences of my beliefs because I am rational, but I can't rule out the possibility that two of my beliefs (or their consequences) are contradictory.

Treating beliefs as statements, under classical logic, any contradictory beliefs would imply that you believe (or would assent to) anything and everything is true (and false). Here is how:

1. P & ~P (premise) ... 2. P (1 simplification) 3. ~P (1 simplification) 4. P or Anything (2, addition [i.e. the self-evident principal that if P is true, P or anything else is also true]) 5. Anything (4, 3 and the principle that if a or b is true and a is not true, then b must be true).

In other words, contradictory beliefs imply anything and everything is true (and false). This is an odd result especially since anyone with an ounce of humility will admit that there is a reasonably high chance that there is a contradiction in their beliefs or in the logical consequences of their beliefs.

Now for a 'more practical' example. Imagine you have a key-value store that represents people and properties. Suppose your database says that Jane is 34 years old and later it says Jane is 35. If you ask the database for all of the logical consequences of this people/property store, under classical logic you will get every statement and its negation. Weird huh?

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#54

Post by duaneb » Thu, May 08, 2014, 2:56 PM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #15

I would have enjoyed this article if it dropped the Buddhism and kept the math. Alternate logics are interesting, but you tend to be able to reduce them into each other in the same way that universal turing machines can simulate each other. They don't add new functionality, they add succinctness. So it's really strange to me to frame them as totally different philosophies . For example, it is the case that self-refer…

The takeaway from the east vs west thought for me was that paradoxes were actually embraced by both societies and are an inherent aspect of logic.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#55

Post by valarauca1 » Thu, May 08, 2014, 2:58 PM UTC

tremols wrote: post #25

Much of the mysticism and misunderstandings about indian philosophy comes from a very bad habit in the translation of indian works where some words are left untranslated as to give them a magical-religious cool sounding sanskrit aura. If koti means corner, there is no reason that 'koti' should appear in a translation instead of corner otherwise you are giving it a special importance that distracts from the text's tru…

I like how you are arguing this for sanskirt, that maintaining words or parses in an ancient dead language for eloquence, historical, cultural heritage is wrong. Yet you say nothing of the text doing the same thing for latin words or parses.

Seems like mild euro-centrism.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#56

Post by simondedalus » Thu, May 08, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

nagarjuna's point is not that contradiction or many-valued logic can be tolerated. nagarjuna, who is addressing a specific set of buddhist logicians, is finding paradoxes in logic in an attempt to break those logicians clinging to logic, and (somewhat presciently in the history of buddhism) suddenly enlighten them. he, like most buddhists, is not making any ontological or metaphysical claims whatsoever.

it's similar to kant's antimonies. he is not trying to assert contradiction exists, he is trying to point out why we need to countenance ideas like a distinction between noumina and phenomena. or like zeno's paradoxes, which have a rhetorical purpose: to confirm zeno's teacher parmenides's claim that the universe is one undifferentiated whole. see also plotinus, who does roughly the same thing (any real ontological difficulty posed by the paradox of plurality is uninteresting to them; they have a thesis and their statement of the paradox is for a purpose).

incidentally, i don't mean to slag graham priest too much. after all, j.c. beall was my logic professor, and i'll always fondly remember how he introduces every new step in a proof by saying, slowly, "now holllld on, what about (etc)." the dialetheists will always hold a place in my heart. that said, i think godel did about all that need be done with the liar's paradox, and we ought to be wittgensteinians regarding language in the first place (words mean what they do in virtue of their being used by agents for a purpose; you cannot fully enumerate representational content of an utterance solely in virtue of its shape. all utterances are context sensitive. for more, see the almost unreadable but spot on work of charles travis, e.g. unshadowed thought).

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Nagarjuna/Nagarjuna_and_...

http://homepages.uconn.edu/~jcb02005/

http://www.amazon.com/Unshadowed-Thought-Representation-Lang...

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#57

Post by s_baby » Thu, May 08, 2014, 3:05 PM UTC

alex-g wrote: post #38

pera wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have enjoyed this article if it dropped the Buddhism and kept the math. May I ask you why? Personally I enjoy reading about the origin of some particular idea/philosophy, even when it's purely anecdotal.

It's interesting, but the problem I have with the presentation is that the modern manifestation of this idea has nothing to do with Buddhism. While we can maybe say that Buddhism came up with some similar-looking stuff, there's no causal link, and the philosophical systems are not working within the same paradigm. Like seeing a human face on the surface of Mars, this is an example of coincidence more than any deep co…

>It's interesting, but the problem I have with the presentation is that the modern manifestation of this idea has nothing to do with Buddhism. While we can maybe say that Buddhism came up with some similar-looking stuff, there's no causal link, and the philosophical systems are not working within the same paradigm. Like seeing a human face on the surface of Mars, this is an example of coincidence more than any deep connection.

Philosophies have been swapping ideas for thousands of years and it shows. Take a look at thinkers like Plotinus for example. He lived in Alexandria back when it was a multicultural metropolis hosting people from across the known world. His philosophy uses ideas and language you would expect to find in eastern traditions. Thanks to his extensive influence you will also find this jargon in western philosophy, christianity, islam, etc... This might not seem relevant to you. But if you know the historical connections between neo-platonism and philosophy of math it might.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#58

Post by kfnn » Thu, May 08, 2014, 3:06 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #48

mjburgess wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Graham Priest is one of the most famous logicians of this century. 2) The LNC is an axiom it doesnt "hold", its either built into what you mean by identity or it isnt. Either way there is no non-circular "hold"ing. 3) Im sure the notions of truth, falsity and consistency are far too technical here for the lay person to get a serious grasp of but i'd be careful of rationalizing your own ignorance by projecting stup…

For 2, yes, the LNC is an axiom. What that properly means is that to deny it is a contradiction, because it must be assumed to deny it. In other words, you can't say "The truth is, there is no truth." Which is what Graham Priest is doing. 1 is an interesting observation, but has no bearing on the facts of the case: he is a fraud. 3: You should be ashamed to make a statement like this in an intellectual conversation.…

The author himself wrote:

The constructions I have described show how to make precise mathematical sense of the Buddhist views. This does not, of course, show that they are true.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#59

Post by personZ » Thu, May 08, 2014, 3:11 PM UTC

Fascinating essay. I enjoy and appreciate the references to Buddhist ("Eastern") philosophies given that the paradoxical thinking is what most of us attribute to it.

What is the catch with Aeon? There don't seem to be ads, paywalls, subscriptions, or other monetizing strategies, but the content seems fantastic. Is it charitable intellectualism?

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#60

Post by mcguire » Thu, May 08, 2014, 3:12 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #6

But the Law of Non-Contradiction does hold. And it's very easy to save the PEM if you distinguish the value of a proposition (true or false) and the cognitive status of the proposition (certain, probable, possible, or arbitrary). Moreover, to exist is to have a particular identity, to have a nature, to be something. Thus, all of this work is utter hogwash. The professor who wrote this IS practicing mysticism and irra…

"Moreover, to exist is to have a particular identity, to have a nature, to be something."

Tweet! Assuming the conclusion! 10 yard penalty, return the sliotar to first base.