h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am very much in favor of your entry getting to the edited guide - though I suspect it needs some work in terms of getting it understood by the educated layman - not so much underestimating their intelligence rather underestimating their knowledge, and patience in getting your point on why they should bother giving the entry the time of day!

1/ I suggest you give a quick background on the LEM from Aristole to Russell
2/ Maybe some info on Dummett and his motivation with Frege and 'resurrection' of metaphysics, etc.
3/ A statement on why you think it's an important debate, eg, it gives a language to human meaning in an otherwise meaningless world (post-Wittgenstein)
4/ Maybe an example or two (Jurisprudence, Category errors, etc)

Here is an example I have used elsewhere ...

Romeo goes to a florist to ask for a traditional floral bouquet valentine present for Juliet . Romeo asks for a recommendation for the best choice from the florist, the florist points out a suitable selection and gives the prices. He makes his choice and takes the bouquet to Juliet.

She says they are lovely, but asks "why did he pick Red Tulips?" Romeo face as red as the flowers, says he was NOT told they where NOT Roses, and he understood that he had made himself clear he wanted a "traditional" valentine bouquet.

Gentle Juliet says "What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

Nevertheless he goes back to complain the next day, the florist points out that Roses and Tulips are traditional gifts of love.

Clearly here it is Not True that "A Rose is Not Not a Rose", or if you prefer "(P)V(Not(P)" is Not Necessarily True in a polyvalent reality, when a incorrect bivalent category assumption is made.

Firstly I want to say I'm glad your message was only left last week, because in view of my erratic login patterns it may have taken months for you to get a reply, and that would be a shame because I simply appreciate anybody making a comment on anything I've done.
On the one hand you've picked up on an area of inquisition that I find very interesting and the points you've raised deserve to be expounded conscientiously.
On the other hand this is a subject I had difficulty getting to grips with and I never even fully understood the questions that I attempted to answer. I remain doubtful for example, whether this essay really sheds any light on the question it is supposed to answer.

Secondly, I don't quite understand the points you're making.

66he was NOT told they where NOT Roses, and he understood that he had made himself clear he wanted a "traditional" valentine bouquet. 99
I think I understand Romeo's thinking here.

66Nevertheless he goes back to complain the next day, the florist points out that Roses and Tulips are traditional gifts of love. 99
This does explain the florist's behaviour.

66Clearly here it is Not True that "A Rose is Not Not a Rose" 99
I'm not sure.
I believe it is true that a rose is not not a rose, because I generally accept the Law of Excluded Middle, and for me double negation is usually a positive.
However, if you mean that "A Rose is Not Not a Rose" doesn't follow from this situation then I agree, because I can't see such a link of implication by the story.
66or if you prefer "(P)V(Not(P)" is Not Necessarily True in a polyvalent reality, when a incorrect bivalent category assumption is made.99
I wouldn't argue that any statement is necessarily true. Truths are only logically necessary because of either our beliefs or our assumptions, be they hidden or otherwise.
(P)V(Not(P)) is true in the usual bivalent reality, and it can be false in polyvalent reality. I would generally assume a bivalent reality, but given the subject of this discussion I don't blame you for questioning that because they are deeper points that you want to make.

I don't have the answers, I'm just trying to make sense of it. Help me if you can.

It seems to me much is usefully made out of the bivalent assumption, and usually correctly - 'It will rain today/It will not rain today' - Is a simple enough case to deal with as determining if it is true or false typically. But when handling evidence and human statements, in particular historical ones, there is a lot of ambiguity. Maybe we can answer the proposition 'it rained today'=P as P: {true, false, unproven} depending on circumstances, evidence and categories.

I am getting a copy of Dummetts 'The Logical Basis of Metaphysics' sent out to me (it's hard to get a clean copy these days). I am looking at how he uses the LEM to re-etablish meaning to Metaphysics.

Specifically I am interested in the problem Agnostics face over the belief-in-God proposition. For Theists/Atheists that decide p=1 or 0 as realists (based on their personal choice) that's OK. But how do we properly analyse the p=0.5 position, and what does it mean? Are Agnostics Realists that state that p=0.5 as a polyvalent position (tri-valent: {1,0.5,0}) or are they best represented as anti-realists who are looking for evidence p=X? You can find Agnostics of both types, and their arguments are interesting ones!

Anyway that's my interest right now on this issue.

As for the 'rose is not a rose' example, well that's just an example to really make the point that 'Juliet' was right to transcend the argument by saying "What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'. I think the "Romeo" character I drew is wasting time having a bivalent argument for the sake of his bruised ego.

But that leads to a serious point that is in rejecting the LEM (in some cases) maybe a way of reducing argument and building more tolerance in our world - I hope.