First Post

Before taking this course, I really did not know what it was going to be about. "Mathematical Expressions and Reasoning for CS"; what the hell does that mean? So far, this course seems to be an introduction to symbolic logic, which I'm quite excited about. I honestly enjoy this course very much, and I'm not trying to be fawning. Since I'm doing a double major in computer science and philosophy, it's really not surprising that I'm interested in logic. I think logic is the only discipline that ties philosophy and computer science together. It's actually one of the fields of philosophy that I admire the most. Unlike some other fields, especially metaphysics, logic isn't filled with BS. As interesting as people like Sartre and Nietzsche are to read, I can't help but feel that their ideas are entirely unfounded. As a consequence, people might think that logic is dry, but this is really a matter of personal taste. To me, not only is logic so clear and precise, it is a field that all other fields of philosophy depend on. To make good philosophical arguments, one needs to have a good control of logic. To even get by in life, one needs to have at least some understanding of logic.

I was first introduced to logic when I read about Wittgenstein and Russell: Russell's paradox, Russell's essay "On Denoting", Wittgenstein's "the beetle in the box" thought experiment, etc. Actually, a lot of their work on logic is also related to language. In any case, before taking this course, I learned about logic in philosophy courses. In those courses, I mostly learned about how logic relates to argument: modus ponens/tollens, logical fallacies (both formal and informal), translating natural language into logical arguments, soundness and validity, etc. Basically, I learned about applying the rules of logic to everyday language in order to construct powerful arguments. This course takes a different approach in that it tries to express logical sentences using symbols and applying rules to manipulate those symbols. It's approach is certainly more mathematical and more complex. I've always wanted to take a course like this, so I'm pretty happy. Well, that's it for now. Let's see how this course goes.