Chapter 25 - Laws of Form

Portent

A formal system of Nonlinear Logic (NLL) is daunting. Incorporating imaginary truthvalues as the resolution of logical paradox, demonstrating that they form a logical basis conjugate to the Boolean truthvalues, defining axioms, rules of inference, equality, transitivity, etc. - is a challenging goal. However, demonstrating that formal systems can model the collapse of self-referential systems to indeterinate forms is a central requirement of the QTP/QTI hypothesis.

This might take a few chapters. We begin by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Primary Docs

Paradigm Discourse:
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Technical Chapter:
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Significance

The ancient wisdom, “is to begin at the beginning.” But where do you start when every candidate for the “beginning” lies on unstable ground? George Bool attempted that, as Euclid before him. The ground seemed solid, obvious, imbued with common sense. Yet their formal systems succumbed to the slipperiness of self-reference.

Our start will be in 1969, following an eccentric British Mathematician, who like those before him, believed he had found a rock on which a firm foundation could be built. A rock with the fewest possible assumptions. A rock with self-reference built in from the beginning.

Intrepid Reader, allow me the privilege of introducing G. Spencer-Brown’s seminal work, “Laws of Form.”