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Online philosophy machine

select
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Posted 03/14/06 - 02:03 PM: Subject: Online philosophy machine	#1
I've called it a philosophy machine because I don't know what else to call it. But the idea is that every proposition in philosophy can be translated into a proposition of some formal logic. Then, since there are (probably) computer programs that can take these logical statements and determine their necessary consequences and conditions, what is to prevent us from inputing the entire history of philosophy into a computer? Sure, there are bound to be interpretation issues, but aren't there always? It'd be a monumental task, but the advantages would be that we can then begin to compare and try to integrate the different philosophies on logic grounds. For example, to what extent do Plato and Aristotle agree? What assumptions does Spinoza depend on? With some fancy programming, I can even imagine a system set up that translates formal logic back into more or less english phrasing. Then it'd be a simple matter of querying the computer to determine what philosophy X or book Y says about Z. To see an example of what I'm talking about regarding translating philosophical works into formal logic, here's an example of some people who have translated the first part of Spinoza's Ethics into formal language. I know Spinoza intentionally used a geometric method in his work, but I think it's also clear that Spinoza could have easily used a different way of presenting his ideas (indeed, he had done just that). And I think all philosophical propositions, and probably also scientific ones, can be translated in this way.
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add sheep was a tautology." Mark Twain

AppleCider
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Posted 03/14/06 - 02:13 PM:	#2
Sounds like a good idea. But I think that a lot of philosophy has to do with emotions and experience as well as logic. How would human experience fit into this program?
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. -Ambrose Bierce

select
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Posted 03/14/06 - 05:01 PM:	#3
Its possible to discuss human emotions and experiences logically. Spinoza did.
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add sheep was a tautology." Mark Twain

The Ever Talking
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Posted 03/14/06 - 09:05 PM:	#4
I don't think logic can truly get the essence of feelings and emotions. And I don't agree that all philosophies can be translated into formal logical sentences; some philosophies do not even have logical grounds in the traditional sense and that does not make them any less important to our history or makes them impossible to discuss. Personally, I don't understand what is the advantage of translating every proposition of philosophy into some form of logic...but...hey, it's an idea. Certainly, it would be useful as a database, as for comparison, I believe it would work only on math/logic-related philosophies. Edited by select on 03/14/06 - 09:40 PM

select
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Posted 03/14/06 - 09:41 PM:	#5
Well, give me an example of a proposition that you believe can't be translated into formal logic.
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add sheep was a tautology." Mark Twain

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Posted 03/14/06 - 11:38 PM:	#6
Every natural language proposition can be expressed formally, the question becomes - how faithful can the representation be? Consider a natural language proposition: If every restaurant is closed, then my mom and I will make dinner for each other. We can always formalize this trivially: P We can improve it: P -> Q (∀x)(IsARestaurant(x) -> Closed(x)) -> MakeDinnerForEachOther(I, my mom) (∀x)(IsARestaurant(x) -> Closed(x)) -> (∀x)(IsTheUniqueMotherOf(x,I) -> MakeDinnerFor(I,x) & MakeDinnerFor(x,I)) Now we will need axioms/definitions to make sense of IsARestaurant, etc. And the idea is that we want formal expressions to do this. One question that might arise is: to what degree do we have to break down human experiences in order to be able to make good formalized defintions for them? We will probably want to break experiences down into certain constituent parts that will allow us to define those experiences in terms of relations between the constituent parts, and also allow us to compare some experiences with others based on the constituent parts of the two experiences, and the relations among them. A second question that might arise from this is: can we properly break down experiences to a sufficient degree, or are our notions too vague and/or imprecise to allow for this?
"The only reason we die... is because we accept it as an inevitability." -- Stewie "To enslave nuance to dogma is folly." -- Lord Hillyer

karmablackout
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Posted 03/14/06 - 11:59 PM: Subject: marx and engels	#7
communism is the perfect example of why this would not work. because if you create a workers utopia on paper it looks great. what marx forgets however is selfishness of man. you cannot build a society upon the idea that men do not need to further themselves, individually. There truely are men who wish for man kind to take a big leap towards perfection, but they are a vast minority. You would thus have to find a way to calculate every possible variable of reality, even those that man has not yet encountered... You must be able to find their probabilities, such as the probability of societal collapse if the philosophies of nietszche were to be put to use. You could in fact compare many philosophies together using logic, but math cannot dictate everything in the world. To take an idea from the movie "I heart Huckabees," You could try to calculate where I end and the air begins but when you get down to particles you can no longer tell. Those open spaces between particles, that is the room for error of all mathematics.

deedee
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Posted 03/15/06 - 03:44 PM:	#8
What about a society selfish for knowledge and wisdom above all else? What would that be like? It would seem to me we are all philosophers trying to find answers to everyday problem in our lives. Some just take it futher, and refuse to run from evil or hardship, instead commited to overcome it. How far will you go? Is there a limit to how much you want to bench-press?

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