From: tonmaas@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 14:46:53 +0200
Organization: If you could only see my desk...

In article ,
CDJ  wrote:

>Is it just me, or is this rather like saying that since the classical
>logician's "and" only applies to truth-functional systems, (and natural
>language is demonstrably not truth-functional) therefore the classical
>logician's "and" "has no relevance to systems in the real world" ?

As Gregory Bateson pointed out many years ago, the logic by which nature
and evolution (embryology, homology, D'Arcy Thompson-patterns, etc.) abide,
has this general structure:

Men die
Grass dies
Men are grass

which is formally called "affirming the consequent" and is rather
disreputable among logicians. 

Ton Maas, Amsterdam NL