# Introduction to (Formal) Logic (and AI)Spring 2021 edition of IFLAI1Selmer Bringsjord

A fully online course, thanks to singular AI technology.

with Naveen Sundar G.
$$\wedge$$ KB Foushée $$\wedge$$ Joshua Taylor $$\wedge$$ $$\ldots$$

[All artwork (all of which is copyrighted) for the LAMA® paradigm by KB Foushée.]

## Terminology & General Orientation

This course is an advanced, accelerated introduction to deductive formal logic, with some substantive coverage of inductive formal logic, in which formalisms for dealing with uncertainty (e.g. probability theory, and also the likelihood calculus) are included, and to heterogeneous formal logic (which allows reasoning over not only textual/linguistic content, but visual content as well). The course conforms to the LAMA® paradigm in general, and is specifically based on Hyperlogic, which among other things (all of which are explained and covered) is based on the view that proofs and arguments are best cast as hypergraphs. Since the present course is focused on deduction, the course is specifically based on hypergraphical natural deduction. To our knowledge, this is the only robust treatment of formal logic based on this form of deduction, which as many unique advantages.

The course makes crucial use of AI for learning, and also provides an introduction to AI itself, at least AI of the logicist variety. In particular, and for example, students are exposed to a pure and general form of logic programming (so-called PGLP) that is particularly well-suited for pursuing logicist AI. They are also educated about the part of AI known as automated reasoning.

The last part of the class includes distinctive coverage of some of the great theorems of humanity’s greatest logician: Kurt Gödel.

• Terminology

Note that sometimes ‘symbolic’ is used in place of ‘formal.’ This is bad practice, since formal logic includes heterogeneous logics in which not only symbolic, but also pictorial information, figures. Deductive formal logic is a superset of mathematical logic; the latter is the part of deductive formal logic devoted to the mathematical analysis of mathematics itself (which is why some also use the term ‘meta-mathematics’ to denote mathematical logic). Part of the present course is devoted to mathematical logic. The specific phrase used to describe what the student is principally introduced to in this class is: beginning deductive logic, advanced (BDLA); hence the title of our textbook (see below).

• What Next?

After this class, the student can proceed to the intermediate level in formal deductive logic, and — with a deeper understanding and better prepared to flourish — to various areas within the formal sciences, which are invariably based on formal logic, at least to a high degree. The formal sciences include e.g. theoretical computer science (e.g., computability theory, complexity theory, rigorous coverage of programming and programming languages), mathematics in all its traditional branches (analysis, geometry, topology, etc), decision theory, (economic) game theory, set theory, probability theory, etc. The class also serves as a stepping stone to further study of AI, of formal/theoretical computer science, and of logic programming.

• What is Formal Logic?

In general, formal logic is the science and engineering of reasoning,1 but even this supremely general description fails to convey the flexibility and enormity of the field. For example, the vast majority of classical mathematics can be deductively derived from a small set of formulae (including, e.g., ZFC set theory, which you’ll be hearing more about, and exploring) expressed in the particular formal logics known as ‘first-order logic’ (FOL = $$\mathscr{L}_1$$) and ‘second-order logic’ (= SOL = $$\mathscr{L}_2$$); you’ll also be hearing more about both of these logics as well. In addition, computer science emerged from and is in large part based upon logic (for peerlessly cogent yet non-technical coverage of this emergence, see C Glymour’s Thinking Things Through). Logic is indeed the foundation for all at once rational-and-rigorous intellectual pursuits. (If you can find a counter-example, i.e. such a pursuit that doesn’t directly and crucially partake of logic, S Bringsjord would be very interested to see it.)

• Context: A Research University

You have wisely decided to attend a technical research university, with a faculty-led mission to create new knowledge and technology in collaboration with students. RPI is the oldest such place in the English-speaking world; it may know a thing or two about this mission. The mission drives those who teach you in this class. The last thing we want to do is simply convey to you how others present and teach introductory formal logic. As should be obvious by now, we think we have invented a better way to define, specify, and present formal logic, and to use computational formal logic for AI, and are working hard to explain this invention, to explain it to others, and to disseminate the invention in question. The better way in question is denoted by the phrase ‘Logic: A Modern Approach®,’ or simply by the abbreviation ‘LAMA®,’ pronounced so as to rhyme with ‘llama.’

• A Disclaimer!

Please note that guest lecturers other than NS Govindarajulu and A Bringsjord should not be assumed to have fully affirmed the LAMA® paradigm. This thus applies specifically to TA Sergei Bugrov. As to what these other thinkers hold in connection with LAMA®, that is an open question. You are free to inquire!

• Graduate Teaching Assistants; Further Help

The TA for this course is Sergei Bugrov; his email address for the course is sergei.iflai1@gmail.com. Please note again the subsection A Disclaimer!.

• Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites. However, as said above, this course covers formal logic, and though the course is an introduction, it has also been said above that it’s an advanced, accelerated one. This implies that — for want of a better phrase — students are expected to have a degree of logico-mathematical maturity, achieved for example through mastery of first-rate coverage of high-school mathematics. You have this maturity and mastery on the assumption that you understood the math you were supposed to learn in order to make it where you are. For example, to get to where you are now, you were supposed to have learned the technique of indirect proof (= proof by contradiction = reductio ad absurdum), from either or both of the courses Algebra 2 and Geometry. An example of the list of concepts and techniques you are assumed to be familiar with from high-school geometry can be found in the common-core-connected Geometry: Common Core by Bass et al., published by Pearson in 2012. An example of the list of concepts and techniques you are assumed to be familiar with from high-school Algebra 2 can be found in the common-core-connected Algebra 2: Common Core by Bellman et al., published by Pearson, 2012. It’s recommended that during the first two weeks of the class, students review their high-school coverage of formal logic. While this material will be covered from scratch in this class, it helps to have at least some command of it from high school, since our pace will be a rapid one. A much more robust treatment of prerequisites and a suitable background for this course is provided in the syllabus.

Students will purchase access to and obtain the inseperably interconnected trio of

1. the e-text Logic: A Modern Approach; Beginning Deductive Logic via HyperSlate®, Advanced (LAMA-BDLAHS);
2. the HyperSlate® software system for (among other things) proof construction in collaboration with AI technology; and
3. HyperGrader®, an AI-infused online system for assessing, tracking, and broadcasting (in anonymized form on leaderboards) student progress.

Each member of this trio will be available online after purchase of the relevant code-carrying envelope from or in the RPI Bookstore. Full logistics of this purchase, and the content of the envelope and how to proceed from this content, will be explained the first class (and subsequently, as needed). Updates to LAMA-BDLAHS, and additional exercises, will be provided by listing on relevant LAMA® web pages upon signing in (and sometimes by email) through the course of the semester. You will need to manage many electronic files as this course proceeds, and e-housekeeping and e-orderliness are of paramount importance. You will specifically need to assemble a library of completed and partially completed proofs in the cloud so that you can use them as building blocks in harder proofs; in other words, building up your own &#8220;logical library&#8221; will be crucial.

Please note that both HyperGrader® and HyperSlate® are both copyrighted, trademarked, Pat. Pend. AI software systems; copying and/or distributing this software to others is strictly prohibited. You will need to AGREE online (after registration) a License Agreement. This agreement will also cover the textbook, which is copyrighted as well, and cannot be copied or distributed in any way, even in part.

In addition, occasionally papers may be assigned as reading. Two, indeed, were assigned in the syllabus, on the first day of class.

As to AI, it’s strongly recommended that students read the online summary of AI provided by Bringsjord & Govindarajulu, available here.

Finally, slide decks used in class will contain crucial additional content above and beyond LAMA-BDLA, information posted on HyperGrader®, and on HyperSlate®; this additional content will be available on the web site as the course unfolds through time.

## Syllabus

The version of the course now underway is the Spring 2021 edition, the syllabus for which is available here. This is a robust, detailed syllabus, and is required reading — and reading that will pay off, for sure.

## HyperSlate®

This is the intelligent software system used for constructing proofs and arguments in collaboration with AI technology, and is available after registration and sign-in.

This is the AI system for submitting, getting assessed, and earning points for proofs and arguments constructed in HyperSlate®, and is available after registration and by sign-in.

## Lectures

• January 25 2021: General Orientation to the LAMA® Paradigm, Logistics, Mechanics. (S Bringsjord)

The syllabus was projected and presented, and discussed, in detail. Please note that the syllabus, in particular, makes clear that students who wish to opt for learning under a different paradigm than that of LAMA® should take Intro to Logic in a Fall semester, since the “Stanford paradigm” is in use then.

• January 27 2021: The Immaterial Paradise; Motivating Paradoxes, Puzzles, and $$\mathcal{R}$$, Part I (a.k.a. “Why Study Logic?”; S Bringsjord)

The many answers to the “Why study formal logic?” question are enumerated, and explained. An avowal of Bringsjord’s immaterialist position on formal logic and human cognition is included.

Students for whom all the problems presented are a breeze, can conceivably test out of the course, but one specific requirement in that regard is that such a student must’ve arrived from high school math and/or computer science with full command of explosion [viz. ∀ Φ, φ, ψ: if Φ $$\vdash$$ φ ∧ ¬ φ, then Φ $$\vdash$$ ψ], which is needed at a key juncture in this lecture.

• Video of the entire lecture, curated and refined, is available here.

• February 1 2021: The Balderdash That is GPT-3 AI; Motivating Paradoxes, and Puzzles, Part II (S Bringsjord)

We explore whether or not the AI GPT-3, appearing in an interview (watchable here) through its humanoid avatar, is as smart as it claims to be. (Result: GPT-3 has a decidedly inflated view of its cognitive powers.) Next, after some new puzzlers involving boolean operators and explosion, we then move to Moriarty’s fiendish ticking-bomb challenge! Can you solve it in time to save the world?

• Video of the entire lecture, curated and refined, is available here.

• February 4 2021: Whirlwind History of Logic — With Skepticism About The Singularity Derived Therefrom (S Bringsjord)

In our time-traveling tour of computational formal logic and AI, we go from Euclid, three centuries BC, to — possibly? — The Singularity in our future, and along the way note that Leibniz, peerless polymath and autodidact, is the inventor of modern formal logic, and that at AI’s DARPA-sponsored dawn in 1956, the automated reasoning Logic Theorist stole the show. The presentation ends with Bringsjordian skepticism about The Singularity in light of (Turing-level) machine impotence in the face of the Entscheidungsproblem.

• Video of the automation of a simple theorem (shown during the synchronous lecture) obtained by Logic Theorist at the 1956 dawn of AI after 10 seconds of work automatically proved instantly by HyperSlate® here.

• February 8 2021: Propositional Calculus I, Emphasis on Our First Oracle (S Bringsjord)

This class meeting introduces one of the central tenets of LAMA®: viz., that making immediate and continuous use of AI in the form of provabiity oracles (here, at the level of the propositional calculus) is indispendable for discovering valid proofs that solve problems. Examples using one of HyperSlate®’s oracles are given. The immediate upshot to note is that proof discovery is a joint and indeed collaborative enterprise that unites superior human intelligence with inferior but nonetheless invaluable machine intelligence in the form of automated reasoning.

• A video showing the use of the PC provability oracle in HyperSlate® solving the “NYS” 3 logic problem is available here.

• February 11 2021: Propositional Calculus II (S Bringsjord)

The simple but cornerstone inference rule of modus ponens (a.k.a. /conditional elimination) is introduced, and claimed to be an element of the immaterial universe of of formal logic. This class meeting also introduces the powerful and — at least when it comes to precise, verifiable, valid reasoning — ubiquitous proof technique proof by cases, which in HyperSlate® corresponds to disjunction elimination. Tutorials are provided via real-time use of HyperSlate® on key exercises.

• A curated video lecture, replete with plenty of HyperSlate® use, can be found here.

• February 18 2021: Propositional calculus III: Reductio ad Absurdum Proofs (S Bringsjord)

A crucial class, in which, harkening back to the astounding Euclid, we look at his still-edifying indirect proof that there must be infinitely many prime numbers, visit Algebra 2 from high school and note that in decent textbooks at this level there is in fact excellent coverage of indirect proof, and then see how reductio ad absurdum is formalized in HyperSlate®.

• A curated video lecture, replete with plenty of HyperSlate® use, can be found here.

• February 22 2021: Pure General Logic Programming (PGLP), and Hyperlog, Part 1

Every proof in HyperSlate, from the tiny to the elaborate, can be viewed as a Pure General Logic Programming (PGLP) program, and starting from an explanation of this fact, PGLP, invented by S Bringsjord under support from ANR was presented, in its historical context. This lecture also serves as a first introduction to HyperlogTM, an instance of PGLP available in HyperSlate®.

• A curated video lecture is available here.

• February 25 2021: The Pure Predicate Caclulus = $$\mathscr{L}_0$$; Toward Quantification (Selmer Bringsjord)

We begin by noting that formal logic provides a way of seeing, contra Darwin (in Descent of Man), that H. sapiens sapiens is qualitatively distinct, intellectually speaking, from nonhuman animals, in light of the former’s ability to reason (1) with abstract relations and functions, (2) with quantifiers, (3) recursively, and (4) over and with infinite structures. The pure predicate calculus = zeroth-order logic = $$\mathscr{L}_0$$ is introduced specifically in connection with (1), which, in contrast to the weaker propositional calculus = $$\mathscr{L}_{pc}$$, it regiments and allows. Presentation and discussion is rendered concrete by use of HyperSlate®.

• A full video lecture, replete with live use of HyperSlate® to make zero-order logic inferentially vivid, is available here.

• March 8 2021: Quantification; FOL I; “Proving” God’s Existence (S Bringsjord)

Here begins coverage of $$\mathscr{L}_1$$. We start by noting the need for quantification in some very simple arguments, then explicitly introduce the two simplest inference rules/schemata for quantifiers in $$\mathscr{L}_1$$. This meeting starts our coverage of the long-inseparable link between formal logic and purported proofs of God’s existence. We start with two such “proofs,” neither of which is intended to be taken seriously, but both of which have pedagogical value. Along the way we note that a serious series of purported proofs of God’s existence have been given by Anselm, Descartes, Leibniz, and — in the 20th century — by the greatest logician so far: Gödel. Analysis of Gödel’s proof will need to wait for a later date; it’s by the way analyzed in a chapter in Bringsjord’s forthcoming Gödel’s Great Theorems, from Oxford University Press.

• March 11 2021: FOL II (Including universal intro) (S Bringsjord)

After the new inference rule/schema universal intro is introduced, we move to HyperSlate® in order to bring to life a simple but esemplastic example. We end by looking at some excercises that require putting it into action to reach some theorems (including three regarding the relative smartness of different Scandinavian countries).

• March 15 2021: FOL III (existential elim); Logic, AI, Games, and the (Powerful!) Human Mind (S Bringsjord)

We first visit a ranking of the “hardness” of problems for humans and AIs based on formal logic. Next, the fourth and final new inference schema for FOL, existential elim, is covered. In addition, after setting context by reviewing AI’s unimpressive victories in checkers, chess, Jeopardy!, and Go, some remarks are made on the nature of grid-based logic-puzzle games; specifically, it’s pointed out that when such games are played without obtaining proofs for the moves made by the player, the efficacy of such games, learning-wise, is questionable. We also discuss Motalen’s latest game: LogiNim.

• March 18 2021: Exhortation; Truth Trees; Measuring Human/Machine Intelligence; and FOL IV (S Bringsjord)

Truth trees are introduced, their superiority over truth tables is explained, and it’s shown that HyperSlate® easily allows for the construction and testing of truth trees — in the very same environment used for the construction and testing of formal hypergraphical proofs. A challenge to Singularity-affirming thinkers, in the form of a very humble set of problems involving numerical quantification, is issued. This challenge comes after coverage of the basic machinery of this quantification, directly related to a relevant section in the LAMA-BDLA textbook. We end by looking at an artificial multi-agent, embodied in RAIR-Lab robots, solving a challenge that involves robust quantification.

• A full video lecture, including at the end the robot demonstration of AI able to handle numerical quantification, is available here.

• March 22 2021: k-Order Ladder, a Mini-Lecture and The Liar; Russell’s Paradox; (Toward) Thoraf’s Paradox (S Bringsjord)

We here first have a self-contained mini-lecture on the k-order ladder, in order to begin to understand the infinite progression from zero- to first- to second- to third-order logic and beyond. A video of the mini-lecture in curated form is available here.

In part 2 of this day’s coverage, we introduce our first paradox, perhaps the primogenitor of all paradoxes: The Liar Paradox, or just simply: The Liar. Next, we proceed to Russell’s Paradox, including the Norwegian barberesque version of it, which will soon be a Required Problem on HyperGrader®. In fact, we mention two forthcoming problems in HyperSlate®, ChimericalBarber, and the problem that asks you to create the proof that Russell mailed Frege, and left a large part of the latter’s work in shambles as a result (RusselsLetter2Frege). Finally, we consider two problems that pave the way toward (Thoraf) Skolem’s Paradox (which we don’t directly engage). The lecture is available in its entirety in video form here.

• March 25 2021: Rebuilding the Foundations of Math via ZFC; Baby Arithmetic (BA) and Peano Arithmetic (PA) (S Bringsjord)

After a quick review of the damage done by Russell’s Paradox, we present and discuss the fascinating and fiendishly clever Richard’s Paradox, which joins with Russell’s Theorem in destroying naïve set theory (including specifically Frege’s Axiom V). Then we take a look for the first time at Zermelo-Franenkel set theory (= ZFC), which saves the day when substituted for Frege’s axiomatization, and we specifically take a look at the Axiom Schema of Separation (SEP) in ZFC, and then look at SEP in HyperSlate®. We end by taking a look at the first part of classical mathematics that can now be confidently built out from the foundation of ZFC: elementary arithmetic, expressed in formal logic. Here we look at Baby Arithmetic (BA) and Peano Arithmetic (PA), and in the case of the former explore a new excercise in HyperGrader®.

• A curated video version of the lecture will be available in its entirety presently.

• April 1 2021 On to Intensional Logics

This is a general introduction, using the robot Blinky and a shell game, along with the False Belief task at level 5 and beyond, to the crucial difference between extensional logics versus intensional logics. The logics $$\mathscr{L}_{pc}$$, $$\mathscr{L}_0$$, $$\mathscr{L}_1$$, $$\mathscr{L}_2$$, $$\mathscr{L}_3$$ are all extensional. Now we move to the intensional category, which includes modal logics. Six modal logics are introduced, rapidly for now: K, T = M, D, S4, S5, and $$\mathcal{DCEC}$$. A first proof in K of its characteristic axiom is constructed in HyperSlate®.

• April 5 2021: Standard Deontic Logic (SDL = D) Isn’t Going to Cut It! (Chisholm’s Paradox; The Free Choice Permission Paradox) (S Bringsjord)

In this lecture (Spring 2020 version that should serve Sp 21 asynchrounous students well here), to first show why we would want to consider a computational deontic logic in the first place, we quickly look at the threat posed by AIs that are at once powerful, autonomous, and intelligent, and conclude that these machines are dangerous. This is what I have dubbed “The PAID Problem.” We also quickly introduce the RAIR Lab’s proposed solution, in the form of The Four Steps. But The Four Steps solution requires for its basis a computational logic that can capture ethical theories and codes, as well as legal theories and codes. We introduce and discuss as a candidate logic for this, so-called Standard Deontic Logic (SDL) = D = M, which is available in HyperSlate®. Unfortunately, two paradoxes (from among many) lead us to reject D, and return to the drawing board, PAID still a looming threat.

• April 8 2021: Logic Can Save Us (Selmer Bringsjord & Naveen Sundar G & Atriya Sen)

Replete with robot demos, in this — and here an earlier-edition, video-version: “Logic Can Save Us” — lecture Selmer Bringsjord provides the RAIR Lab’s solution to the PAID Problem (and along the way briefly discusses another existential threat, that of pandemics), one that makes use not of a deficient deontic logic like D, but rather $$\mathcal{DCEC}^\ast$$. Demos are shown. The presentation concludes with the robot version of the “Jungle Jim” ethical super-dilemma, which demands moral creativity in machines.

• April 12 2021: The Lottery Paradox, Solved; and Introduction to /In/ductive Logic (S Bringsjord)

First, using this slide deck, we briefly visit The Paradox of Grue, which is solved in detail in Bringsjord’s intermediate logic-and-AI class (IFLAI1), in order to explain that this paradox serves to divide and define three fundamentally different approaches to formal inductive logic, one that originates in Carnap and is mathematical and non-computational (pure inductive logic), one that is rooted in philosophy and informal argumentation, and the third approach, the one pursued by Bringsjord: base inductive logic on argument and proof, but do so in a formal/mathematical manner. This third approach, as shown in this video lecture (from 2020), enables S Bringsjord to provide a superior solution to the Lottery Paradox, by introducing a multi-valued inductive logic that does the trick, lickety split.

• April 15 2021: Overview of GGT Book; Gödel’s Completeness Theorem (S Bringsjord)

After setting some context with a brief overview of the peerless collection of Gödel’s greatest theorems (each of which is covered in the forthcoming Gödel’s Great Theorems (by S Bringsjord; Oxford University Press), we cover the first of these theorems, which was achieved in Gödel’s dissertation. This is Gödel’s Completeness Theorem, and as part of it, König’s Lemma (which Gödel proved from scratch even though it has previously been proved); the theorem: Either (formula) $$\phi$$ is satisfiable, or it’s refutable (here the formula is in FOL = $$\mathscr{L}_1$$). It will be necessary to make use of hand-drawn content to allow some examples to be worked out; these examples involve a tree-based approach to establish satisfiability if doing so is possible; and reference to a deductive refutation of $$\phi$$ if doing so is not possible.

• A corresponding video lecture (earlier edition) by S Bringsjord is available here.

• April 19 2021: Gödel’s First Incompleteness Theorem (S Bringsjord; extracted from his Gödel’s Great Theorems)

This lecture covers the theorem for which Gödel is celebrated in the semi-popular literature and media; it says that, unfortunately, mathematics, indeed even just elementary arithmetic, contains an infinite number of propositions that will remain mysterious forever: unproved, with negations unproved as well (unless we turn to infinitary techniques: we assume that our axiom systems and our proof techniques are limited in certain ways — ways that yours truly, generally following Zermelo, rejects.) You have what you need to fully understand the theorem and proof, but if you are a mere mortal, will need to have your thinking cap on, and to be ready to pause the video as needed.

• April 22 2021: Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem (S Bringsjord)

We here cover Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem (G2), which is a corollary of G1. As a matter of fact, armed with the Fixed Point Theorem, and G1, G2 really is rather a piece of cake to prove.

• April 26 2020: Gödel’s Silver Blaze Theorem: \$ZFC ¬\vdash ¬ CH (S Bringsjord)

We here cover Gödel’s Greatest Theorem, in which he shows that ZFC set theory doesn’t deductively entail the Continuum Hypothesis (CH). [We leave aside the Generalized CH (GCH).] Without making any use of transfinite numbers, we set out and reflect upon both CH and the GCH. We then analyze the reasoning of Sherlock Holmes in the The Adventure of Silver Blaze, which is fundamentally a proof of non-entailment in its own right (and shows Scotland Yard, once again, to be, well, not exactly a place of ingenious detection). Finally, we pass to presentation and explanation of a proof-sketch of Gödel’s stunning results (put informally) that mathematics can’t be used to prove mathematics free of contradiction.

• April 29 2021: Gödel’s Time Travel Theorem (S Bringsjord)

We here look at the context, paradoxes related to and arising from, and diagrammatic justification for: Gödel’s birthday present to Einstein: a proof that backwards time travel in (Einstein’s) General Theory of Relativity is possible.

• The slide deck (earlier version) provided as a movie, so that all diagrammatic/heterogeneous proofs can be viewed and experienced in the form devised by S Bringsjord is available here.
• The Corresponding Video Lecture is in production.

• May 3 2021 Final IFLAI 202 Lecture: Could AI Ever Match Gödel’s Greatness? (S Bringsjord; based on Part II of final chap his Gödel’s Great Theorems)

In this lecture (previous edition), the final one in IFLAI 2021, we explore the possibility of AI so powerful that it can reach Gödelian heights. Our investigation of this possibility includes reflection up a profound Either/Or proposition that Gödel introduced in a 1951 lecture at Brown University: either we are infinitely more powerful than any finite computing machine (e.g. a standard Turing machine, or the machines that underlie HyperSlate®), or else there are absolutely (human-)unsolvable Diophantine problems. The lecture (proper) ends with the AI vs. Gödel “Scorecard,” and then presentation of the number and type of problems in Test 3, and the grading scheme thereof.

## Tutorials

A simple tutorial, available here, in which someone registers into HyperGrader® and proves that switching the order of conjuncts is provable in the propositional calculus = $$\mathscr{L}_{PC}$$. This proof wins a trophy and earns a leaderboard spot for the Exercise switching_conjuncts_fine.

• Getting Started with HyperSlate®: Propositional Calculus

In this tutorial, available here, S Bringsjord starts from scratch with a blank workspace and uses HyperSlate® and the PC provability oracle available therein to show that the atomic proposition $$h$$ can be deduced from $$\{\neg \neg c, c \rightarrow a, \neg a \vee b, b \rightarrow d, \neg (d \vee e)\}$$. The main purpose of this video is coverage of the intuitive interface and basic moves therein.

## Pop Problems

These problems are timed and released in HyperGrader® in the absence of any preceding announcement that they are coming. Please see the syllabus for more information.

## Homeworks

Homework consists of solving all Required problems listed on HyperGrader®’s web pages. (Non-required problems are clearly marked as such, e.g. as Bonus Problems.) All solutions are created in their final form in HyperSlate®. HyperGrader® for interactive use via its underlying AI technology opens for its Spring 2021 stint on or about Feb 8 2021, and an orientation/introduction to the system is given in class that day. Note that homeworks cannot be done without access to, and sustained and continuous use of, HyperSlate® and HyperGrader®.

## Tests

There are three tests, each presented and taken via HyperGrader®. Please see the syllabus for their release dates.

## Footnotes:

1

Warning: Increasingly, the term ‘reasoning’ is used by some who don’t really do anything related to reasoning, as traditionally understood, to nonetheless label what they do. Fortunately, it’s easy to verify that some reasoning is that which is covered by formal logic: If the reasoning is explicit; links declarative statements or formulae together via explicit, abstract reasoning schemata or rules of inference (giving rise to at least explicit arguments, and often proofs); is surveyable and inspectable, and ultimately machine-checkable; then the reasoning in question is what formal logic is the science and engineering of. (An immediate consequence of the characteristics just listed is that AIs based on artificial neural networks don’t reason, ever.) In order to characterize /in/formal logic, one can remove from the previous sentence the requirements that the links must conform to explicit reasoning schemas or rules of inference, and machine-checkability. It follows that so-called informal logic would revolve around arguments, but not proofs. An excellent overview of informal logic, which will be completely ignored in this class, is provided in “Informal Logic” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In this article, it’s made clear that, yes, informal logic concentrates on the nature and uses of argument.

Created: 2021-05-03 Mon 11:08

Emacs 25.3.50.1 (Org mode 8.2.10)

Validate