I am someone whose initial work was in logic and formal languages. It has since expanded to include philosophical logic and applications of logic and game theory to understand social issues. I introduced the notion of social software in 1996 and it has attracted a few followers. But it needs to be pursued more intensely. I have advised 22 people towards their doctorates and co-advised some more. Some of my former students have become famous. Supervisors: Hartley Rogers, Burton Dreben, and Georg Kreisel
How logic and game theory can help us understand social behavior and hopefully, ameliorate confli... more How logic and game theory can help us understand social behavior and hopefully, ameliorate conflicts.
Much of the discussion about social choice tends to focus on the
process of the election. We ente... more Much of the discussion about social choice tends to focus on the process of the election. We enter the voting booth and choose among the candidates. But is this process really fair or good?
It is quite possible that in November 2024 America voters will be faced with a choice between Biden and Trump. Our current process sees to it (more or less) that the more popular among these two will be elected. What it does NOT see to it is that the choice between these two is the best possible for voters.
Can we examine the nomination process theoretically?
Many situations involve an agent playing two or more simultaneous games with disjoint states of a... more Many situations involve an agent playing two or more simultaneous games with disjoint states of agents. However an action by the agent creates two payoffs in the two games and the problem for the agent is how to maximize the joint payoff. One example we use involve a gay man facing a conflict between his Christian family and his gay husband. Another example is about a working wife trying to balance the demands of work and family. We use techniques like Nash equilibrium, Nash bargaining, and Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind.
We investigate the semantics of messages, and argue that the meaning of a message is naturally an... more We investigate the semantics of messages, and argue that the meaning of a message is naturally and usefully given in terms of how it affects the knowledge of the agents involved in the communication. We see that the semantics depends on the protocol used by the agents, and this leads us to knowledge based specification of protocols. While these notions are natural for distributed computations, we suggest that the considerations discussed here may be relevant in more general linguistic contexts.
E-mail: jfloyd@ bu. edu. Wittgenstein's remarks on G��del's first incom... more E-mail: jfloyd@ bu. edu. Wittgenstein's remarks on G��del's first incompleteness theorem often have been denounced: Kreisel calls them ���wild,��� Dummett has insisted that they ���are of poor quality and contain definite errors,��� Wright discreetly fails to mention them in his book on Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. G��del himself claimed that Wittgenstein had not understood the theorem, or at least had ���pretended not to.��� On the contrary, I argue that Wittgenstein did understand the theorem, that he had no interest in trying to refute it, and ...
In this thesis I will extend graded modal logic (GML ) first discussed in [9, 10] to a logic that... more In this thesis I will extend graded modal logic (GML ) first discussed in [9, 10] to a logic that can capture the concept of majority. I will present the modal system MJL that will capture our intuition about majority and prove soundness and completeness for this system. I will also discuss May's theorem with infinite population. Graded modal logic, as presented in [7], extends propositional modal systems with a set of modal operators dn n∈N that express "there are more than n accessible worlds such that...". I extend GML with a modal operator W that can express "there are at least half of the accessible worlds such that...". The semantics of W is straightforward provided that there are only finitely many accessible worlds; however if there are infinitely many accessible worlds the situation becomes much more complex. In order to deal with such situations, we introduce the notion of majority space. A majority space is a set W together with a collection of sub...
Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 2017
We examine the relationship between the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge and Plat... more We examine the relationship between the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge and Plato’s theory about it as expounded in the Theaetetus. Considering Socrates’ remarks in the Theaetetus brings us to some concerns raised by Turing and to Wittgenstein’s famous comment explanations come to an end somewhere. We present two simple technical results which bear on the question. Finally, we look at the pragmatic aspects of knowledge attributions. In an Appendix we say a few words about Indian epistemology and Gettier problems.
Does a dog think? Does a prelingual child think? Creatures without language seem to be making som... more Does a dog think? Does a prelingual child think? Creatures without language seem to be making some logical inferences which allow them to make decisions. We offer a utility and perception based account which allows us to deal with this phenomenon formally. We offer the suggestion that non-lingual creatures have a certain perception of the world and that they make the best decisions relative to that perception. Logic may be “used” to infer non-perceived facts from perceived facts.
Rationalizability, originally proposed by Bernheim and Pearce, generalizes the notion of Nash equ... more Rationalizability, originally proposed by Bernheim and Pearce, generalizes the notion of Nash equilibrium. Nash equilibrium requires common knowledge of strategies. Rationalizability only requires common knowledge of rationality. However, their original notion assumes that the payoffs are common knowledge.
How logic and game theory can help us understand social behavior and hopefully, ameliorate confli... more How logic and game theory can help us understand social behavior and hopefully, ameliorate conflicts.
Much of the discussion about social choice tends to focus on the
process of the election. We ente... more Much of the discussion about social choice tends to focus on the process of the election. We enter the voting booth and choose among the candidates. But is this process really fair or good?
It is quite possible that in November 2024 America voters will be faced with a choice between Biden and Trump. Our current process sees to it (more or less) that the more popular among these two will be elected. What it does NOT see to it is that the choice between these two is the best possible for voters.
Can we examine the nomination process theoretically?
Many situations involve an agent playing two or more simultaneous games with disjoint states of a... more Many situations involve an agent playing two or more simultaneous games with disjoint states of agents. However an action by the agent creates two payoffs in the two games and the problem for the agent is how to maximize the joint payoff. One example we use involve a gay man facing a conflict between his Christian family and his gay husband. Another example is about a working wife trying to balance the demands of work and family. We use techniques like Nash equilibrium, Nash bargaining, and Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind.
We investigate the semantics of messages, and argue that the meaning of a message is naturally an... more We investigate the semantics of messages, and argue that the meaning of a message is naturally and usefully given in terms of how it affects the knowledge of the agents involved in the communication. We see that the semantics depends on the protocol used by the agents, and this leads us to knowledge based specification of protocols. While these notions are natural for distributed computations, we suggest that the considerations discussed here may be relevant in more general linguistic contexts.
E-mail: jfloyd@ bu. edu. Wittgenstein's remarks on G��del's first incom... more E-mail: jfloyd@ bu. edu. Wittgenstein's remarks on G��del's first incompleteness theorem often have been denounced: Kreisel calls them ���wild,��� Dummett has insisted that they ���are of poor quality and contain definite errors,��� Wright discreetly fails to mention them in his book on Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. G��del himself claimed that Wittgenstein had not understood the theorem, or at least had ���pretended not to.��� On the contrary, I argue that Wittgenstein did understand the theorem, that he had no interest in trying to refute it, and ...
In this thesis I will extend graded modal logic (GML ) first discussed in [9, 10] to a logic that... more In this thesis I will extend graded modal logic (GML ) first discussed in [9, 10] to a logic that can capture the concept of majority. I will present the modal system MJL that will capture our intuition about majority and prove soundness and completeness for this system. I will also discuss May's theorem with infinite population. Graded modal logic, as presented in [7], extends propositional modal systems with a set of modal operators dn n∈N that express "there are more than n accessible worlds such that...". I extend GML with a modal operator W that can express "there are at least half of the accessible worlds such that...". The semantics of W is straightforward provided that there are only finitely many accessible worlds; however if there are infinitely many accessible worlds the situation becomes much more complex. In order to deal with such situations, we introduce the notion of majority space. A majority space is a set W together with a collection of sub...
Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 2017
We examine the relationship between the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge and Plat... more We examine the relationship between the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge and Plato’s theory about it as expounded in the Theaetetus. Considering Socrates’ remarks in the Theaetetus brings us to some concerns raised by Turing and to Wittgenstein’s famous comment explanations come to an end somewhere. We present two simple technical results which bear on the question. Finally, we look at the pragmatic aspects of knowledge attributions. In an Appendix we say a few words about Indian epistemology and Gettier problems.
Does a dog think? Does a prelingual child think? Creatures without language seem to be making som... more Does a dog think? Does a prelingual child think? Creatures without language seem to be making some logical inferences which allow them to make decisions. We offer a utility and perception based account which allows us to deal with this phenomenon formally. We offer the suggestion that non-lingual creatures have a certain perception of the world and that they make the best decisions relative to that perception. Logic may be “used” to infer non-perceived facts from perceived facts.
Rationalizability, originally proposed by Bernheim and Pearce, generalizes the notion of Nash equ... more Rationalizability, originally proposed by Bernheim and Pearce, generalizes the notion of Nash equilibrium. Nash equilibrium requires common knowledge of strategies. Rationalizability only requires common knowledge of rationality. However, their original notion assumes that the payoffs are common knowledge.
On the nature of private experience and qualia. This paper was written a long time ago, between ... more On the nature of private experience and qualia. This paper was written a long time ago, between 1983 and 1994 on a train ride from Larchmont to New York. I wish I had a more exact date but I never published that paper.
We show that he problem of vague predicates can be solved completey if we look away from semantic... more We show that he problem of vague predicates can be solved completey if we look away from semantics and logic and ask, "whatlanguage games can be successfully played with these words?"
We consider the issue of regarding a group as an agent. In his book The Intentional Stance Dennet... more We consider the issue of regarding a group as an agent. In his book The Intentional Stance Dennett considers the issue of entities which can be regarded as agents. These are entities whose behavior we are able to predict (somewhat) by asking, "What does it want? What does it know? What is it able to do?" Such questions are already difficult when we are dealing with other human beings. They become more tricky when we are dealing with a group as an agent and face difficult questions of defining its wishes and its possible actions. We start by poiniting out that a set like Democrats, or Muslims, does not satisfy the requisite conditions, at least not fully and point to some insights.
We contrast the presentism of the Buddha (and others) with the forward looking stance of Popperia... more We contrast the presentism of the Buddha (and others) with the forward looking stance of Popperian creatures and discuss the virtues and deficiencies of both stances. Issues like discounting and the marshmallow puzzles are also brought in.
Davidson's argument that animals do not have belief is disputed and a formal account of the umwe... more Davidson's argument that animals do not have belief is disputed and a formal account of the umwelt, based on the work of Jakob von Uexkuell is given. The main thesis is that all animals, pre-lingual children, and to some extent even adults live in their own umwelts. These umwelts are personal worlds and how they are used allows a being to get around in the actual world and to prosper.
Jakob von Uexkuell was an Estonian-German ethologist in the first half of the XXth century. Long... more Jakob von Uexkuell was an Estonian-German ethologist in the first half of the XXth century. Long before Nagel and Dennett, Uexkuell asked what it is like to be a tick, a fly or even a child. His notion of the Umwelt is very Kantian. We make a stab at formalizing Uexkull's notion of Umwelt. Hopefully this will lead to further technical developments enabling ethologists to go beyond ordinary language in their discussions.
We generalize some ideas of Savage, Pearce and Bernheim to understand how we can figure out the p... more We generalize some ideas of Savage, Pearce and Bernheim to understand how we can figure out the preferences and beliefs of an agent in a multi-agent context, based on the agent's actions.
Clearly an agent's actions will be affected by what he (she) believes other agents believe and prefer (and would do). But typically this knowledge is confined to ordinal utilities and will not extend to cardinal utilities.
Ann may know that Bob prefers chocolate to vanilla to strawberry. She is unlikely to know whether he prefers vanilla to a 70-30 chance of chocolate and strawberry. So her behavior needs to be understood in the face of such partial ignorance. She knows his ordinal utilities but not his cardinal ones and maximizing expected value is a method she is unlikely to use.
But she will not use a dominated strategy like offering him vanilla ice cream when she also has chocolate.
We give examples from literature and real life of how our framework would operate and give a formal model.
This is my introductory talk at the Conference on:
GAMES, NETWORKS AND SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY
April... more This is my introductory talk at the Conference on:
GAMES, NETWORKS AND SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY April 20-21, CUNY Graduate Center
The problem of vagueness and Sorites goes back as far as Eubulides (4th century BC) although ther... more The problem of vagueness and Sorites goes back as far as Eubulides (4th century BC) although there are hints of it also in Indian scriptures. There has been a great deal of work on it by philosophers, mathematicians and computer scientists. We give a survey of the previous work (including by ourselves) and offer a new suggestion related to Wittgenstein's language games.
We suggest a knowledge based means whereby we can have safety without too much decrease in social... more We suggest a knowledge based means whereby we can have safety without too much decrease in social and economic activity. Economic activity has positive and negative aspects. The negative aspect is that it can lead to more infections. The positive aspect is that it can lead to economic and social benefits. The two can be balanced by acquiring knowledge and making it available so that people can make individual decisions based on what they know about the benefits and risks of a particular putative social encounter. Then we need not close ALL barber shops but rather allow people - in view of their knowledge - whether to make a particular visit or not.
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process of the election. We enter the voting booth and choose
among the candidates. But is this process really fair or good?
It is quite possible that in November 2024 America voters will be faced with a choice between Biden and Trump. Our current process sees to it (more or less) that the more popular among these two will be elected. What it does NOT see to it is that the choice between these two is the best possible for voters.
Can we examine the nomination process theoretically?
process of the election. We enter the voting booth and choose
among the candidates. But is this process really fair or good?
It is quite possible that in November 2024 America voters will be faced with a choice between Biden and Trump. Our current process sees to it (more or less) that the more popular among these two will be elected. What it does NOT see to it is that the choice between these two is the best possible for voters.
Can we examine the nomination process theoretically?
Clearly an agent's actions will be affected by what he (she) believes other agents believe and prefer (and would do). But typically this knowledge is confined to ordinal utilities and will not extend to cardinal utilities.
Ann may know that Bob prefers chocolate to vanilla to strawberry. She is unlikely to know whether he prefers vanilla to a 70-30 chance of chocolate and strawberry. So her behavior needs to be understood in the face of such partial ignorance. She knows his ordinal utilities but not his cardinal ones and maximizing expected value is a method she is unlikely to use.
But she will not use a dominated strategy like offering him vanilla ice cream when she also has chocolate.
We give examples from literature and real life of how our framework would operate and give a formal model.
GAMES, NETWORKS AND SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY
April 20-21, CUNY Graduate Center
https://sites.google.com/view/gnse-2017/home