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Article 5307 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Subject: Re: An apology to Mr. Krishnaprased
Message-ID: <60612@aurs01.UUCP>
Date: 28 Apr 92 14:17:21 GMT
References: <1992Apr24.053037.11505@husc3.harvard.edu>
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> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
> Someone who boasts of being unable to
> understand a textbook proof has no business "working in logic". 

It is quite clear that Zeleny is misinterpreting Krishnaprasad's
comment.  The comment was:

    Avoid looking at First-order logic text books. Even though I work in
    logic, I understood more from the informal descriptions than the gory
    proof in Enderton!

First, no boasting.  Second, no claim not to understand the proof.  In
fact, in the context of a query about introductory references, and in
the context of philosophical implications (if any), it is quite clear
that the "understood more" does not refer to the proof at all, but to
the surrounding philosophical context.  The "avoid looking at", again
in context, is also clearly meant to avoid them as an *introduction* to
this *specific* topic, not an absolute disrecommendation, nor even a
disrecommendation of them as introduction to other topics.

Also, the term "gory" is hardly an insult to Enderton, as it is clearly
meant here as the slang term for "thorough and painstaking".

Further still, Krishnaprasad has since explicitly said that this is 
roughly what was meant, as in:

    I wanted to convey to him, [..Philip W. L. Fong..]
    that for a beginner, the books
    GODEL, ESCHER, BACH and GODEL'S PROOF are a good starting
    point as they do a good job of explaining the basic ideas.
    I do realize that after an informal understanding of the
    underlying ideas, one needs the kind of  rigorous proofs
    given in the textbooks on FOL.

For Zeleny to maintain at this point that Krishnaprasad
"boasts of being unable to understand a textbook proof"
is at best a severe distortion of the situation.

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop


