Paul Monk and Tim van Gelder - Enhancing our Grasp of Complex Arguments

[gusl]

Paul Monk and Tim van Gelder - Enhancing our Grasp of Complex Arguments

This would already be a big step in intelligence amplification. And it's very feasible already! We just need to develop expressive and convenient formalisms, and teach ourselves to use them.

Eventually, text will be obsolete... and no one will want to have a serious argument without an argument-board. Having an argument without a argument maps will be considered as bad as performing huge multiplications without a calculator or doing math without computers.

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Zeilberger seems to have a blog.

and I'm blogging the following just for the record; since I am interested in what it means to "understand" mathematical concept / argument.
Opinion 37: Guess What? Programming is Even More Fun Than Proving, and, More Importantly It Gives As Much, If Not More, Insight and Understanding

Comments

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

I believe Doron is fancybred's uncle.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

No such user. But I remember seeing this guy around.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

... and now it works again!

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

I mistyped it the first time.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

GMail sucks for getting LJ notifications! I totally missed the second posting.

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

Also, I recommend Andrej's comment here:
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/fb37

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

yes, I saw that.

[darius.livejournal.com]

re A well-written, modular, and well-documented computer program is much easier and more fun to read than a long-winded human proof.

I was thinking of another case like that just yesterday when Feynman's book QED came up. Very nice, clear, insightful presentation, but it leaves out a little too much -- I wanted to see some code so I could really understand it.

[darius.livejournal.com]

The argument-mapping talk is a nice one, though kind of undermined by leaving out the map of its own argument. Also software for that goes back to the 80s at least.

[thepublicguy.livejournal.com]

"kind of undermined by leaving out the map of its own argument"

I love this comment.

Argument maps are a tool for analysis but text remains the tool used for persuasion. Professors of philosophy usually get papers published when they argue for a point of view, not when they simply analyse the arguments. An argument map cannot show which basic premise should be accepted and neither can text. But text can be used to make an emotive appeal for the acceptance of a basic premise.