What Is A Theorem That A Human May Prove It?

Post   : What Is A Theorem That A Human May Prove It?
URL    : http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2013/06/19/what-is-a-theorem-that-a-human-may-prove-it/
Posted : June 19, 2013 at 9:00 pm
Author : Jon Awbrey

Re: Why Is Mathematics Possible?
At: http://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/why-is-mathematics-possible/

Re: Tim Gowers' Take On The Matter
At: http://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/why-is-mathematics-possible-tim-gowerss-take-on-the-matter/

Comment 1
---------

To the extent that mathematics has to do with reasoning about possible existence,
or inference from pure hypothesis, a line of thinking going back to Aristotle
and developed greatly by C.S. Peirce may have some bearing on the question of
Why Mathematics Is Possible.  In that line of thought, hypothesis formation
is treated as a case of “abductive” inference, whose job in science generally
is to supply suitable raw materials for deduction and induction to develop
and test.  In that light, a large part of our original question becomes,
as Peirce once expressed it —

Is there cause to believe “we can trust to the human mind's having such a power of
guessing right that before very many hypotheses shall have been tried, intelligent
guessing may be expected to lead us to the one which will support all tests, leaving
the vast majority of possible hypotheses unexamined”?  (Collected Papers, CP 6.530).

The question may fit the situation in mathematics slightly
better if we modify the word “hypothesis” to say “proof“.

Comment 2
---------

I copied out a more substantial excerpt from Peirce's paper here:

C.S. Peirce • The Proper Treatment of Hypotheses
• http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2013/06/19/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-the-proper-treatment-of-hypotheses/

The question of naturalness arises in many areas, from AI and cognitive science to logic and
the philosophy of science, most often under the heading of “Natural Kinds”.  Given a universe
of discourse X, the lattice of “All Kinds” would be its power set, and we want to know what
portion of that ordering makes up the Natural Kinds, the concepts or hypotheses that are
worth considering in practice.

To the same purpose, Peirce uses the criterion of
“admissible hypotheses that seem the simplest to
the human mind”.

Comment 3
---------

The following project report outlines the three types of inference — Abductive, Deductive,
and Inductive — as treated by Aristotle and Peirce, at least insofar as these patterns of
reasoning can be analyzed in syllogistic forms.  I did this work by way of exploring how
a propositional logic engine might be used to assist in scientific inquiry.

Functional Logic : Inquiry and Analogy
• http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Functional_Logic_:_Inquiry_and_Analogy

It looks a bit cobbled together to my eyes today and probably could use a rewrite,
but I did put a lot of work into the diagrams and remain rather pleased with those.

References
----------

Well, more like allusions, really …

McCulloch, Warren S. (1961), “What Is a Number that a Man May Know It,
and a Man, that He May Know a Number” (Ninth Alfred Korzybski Memorial
Lecture), General Semantics Bulletin, Numbers 26 & 27, 7–18, Institute
of General Semantics, Lakeville, CT. Reprinted in Embodiments of Mind.
• http://www.vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/mcculloch_what-is-a-number.pdf

McCulloch, Warren S. (1965), ''Embodiments of Mind'', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

-- 

academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey
oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache