Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Frege's notation is great

It gets a bad rep, and I have no idea why. Propositions are really trees, that's their essence, muddled by the fact that, due to accidents of history we never see the essence, just the suppressed form of a line. Or perhaps, in everyday speech, we are too used to compound propositions being just long sequences of conjunctions, where the potential tree-ness isn't actualized. But statements are trees, and they will resists any attempts to force them to mimic something which they are not, i.e. linear sequences, by becoming obstinately hard to understand. If you don't believe me, try using nothing but the Reverse Polish Notation for any amount of time, and let me know how long it takes for it to drive you bonkers. 

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