Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Logic through the Lens of Humanities
I would like to preface this post by acknowledging my very limited knowledge of quantum and classical logic. My working definitions (in the lense of a more humanities approach) are that classical logic is black and white, things are mutually exclusive, either true or false. Quantum logic, however, embraces the shades of grey. Meanings are superimposed onto one another, so, the “or” operator does not always apply. It is generally thought that Americans practice classical logic, because we have classical computing and see things as right or wrong, true or false. I am not so sure that we always follow this path of logic, however. There are many instances in the humanities where things are not so black and white. Paradoxes, for example, are both true and false simultaneously. If someone says that they always lie, it is outside of the bounds of classical logic, because it is impossible to know if they are lying or telling the truth. But in quantum logic, those ideas are not mutually exclusive and the statement is both a lie and the truth. So should we consider teaching our children quantum logic? Both are equally valid expressions of logic, and as such, each has a set of conditions that it best operates under. We should diversify the types of logic we use, because not everything is as cut and dry as classical logic would lead you to believe.
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This is a really interesting outlook on the potential of quantum logic. Children are arguably the master's at "beginner's mind" which plays a large part in understanding the fundamentals of this logic. I know from personal experience that I struggle with understanding or even conceptualizing these principles well. Being able to teach this at a relatively young age would go far in not only humanities but in science as well. Currently, it seems that an opinion is either right or wrong, a right and a wrong answer, that problems always have solutions. However, as many of us have discovered, this is rarely the case. Changing or at least combining the classical with the quantum could have lasting impact on the education system. But the question remains, how? I would propose, as a very simple starting point, actually constructing the classical and PETE boxes Terry Rudolph so eloquently described. Building an actual box with actual black and white balls and executing these experiments would provide some valuable hands-on learning. The problem of course is the logistics of randomizing and swapping colors inside a box you realistically can't alter. So there's still some progress to be made on that end.
ReplyDeleteYou can set up a pretty good demonstration with a three pairs of polarized sunglasses rotated relative to each other. It's not identical but it's a decent analogy. On the other hand teaching children that true and false aren't exclusive but fit into alternate logical systems encapsulating paradox should I think be straightforward. In general we actually don't include clear statements about even binary logic in K-12 classes... It's more of an underlying assumption, here in the US. In France they do philosophy classes so I guess they see it more formally. This kind of thing can easily fit into math classes with word problems.
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