[FOM] Role of Polemics

[José Félix Costa]

Triggered by Professor Harvey Friedman, I would like fomers to know about a
very interesting book that introduces the MATHEMATICAL concepts of
«scientist», «scientific interaction», etc.:

Elements of Scientific Inquiry
Eric Martin and Daniel N. Osherson
MIT Press

1   Introduction
1.1 Modeling Inquiry
1.2 The Order Paradigm
1.3 Discussion of the Paradigm
1.4 Notes

2   A Numerical Paradigm
2.1 Fundamentals
2.2 Solvability Characterized
2.3 Efficiency and Rationality
2.4 Memory Limitation
2.5 Computable Scientists
2.6 Functional Languages
2.7 Probabilistic Solvability
2.8 Transition to Chapter 3
2.9 Notes

3   A First-Order Framework for Inquiry
3.1 Fundamentals
3.2 Solvability Characterized
3.3 Four Applications
3.4 Efficient Discovery
3.5 Computable Solvability
3.6 Probabilistic Solvability
3.7 Generalization to Arbitrary Structures
3.8 Notes

4   Inquiry via Belief Revision
4.1 Belief Revision
4.2 Hypothesis Selection via Belief Revision
4.3 Augmenting the Background Theory
4.4 Efficient Inquiry via Belief Revision
4.5 Closure
4.6 Scientists Defined via Course-of-Values
4.7 Summary and Prospects
4.8 Notes


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J. Felix Costa
Departamento de Matematica
Instituto Superior Tecnico
Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, PORTUGAL
tel:      351 - 21 - 841 71 45
fax:     351 - 21 - 841 75 98
e-mail:   fgc at math.ist.utl.pt
www:    http://fgc.math.ist.utl.pt/jfc.htm
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