SLOG Post #2

So the past week has introduced some interesting things. I was struggling a bit with "and", "or", "if_then_", "not" and how they interact with each other in addition to struggling with being able to translate sentences to symbols and back early on last week but I think I'm getting a better grasp now that I'm getting more accustomed to the syntax and definitions. I still need to remind myself that "or" is inclusive, not exclusive like it is in normal speech most (?) of the time. I've found saying things aloud and trying to be very methodical makes it much easier to decipher what a line is really "saying" whether it be English or symbols rather than just trying to go with gut instinct (since I usually go with what I would assume it would be using colloquial speech).

Unsurprisingly I've encountered some material we've covered in CSC165 in another one of my courses, philosophy. The instance was not specifically in lecture or in the actual course materials but rather during a tutorial. Discussing the problem of induction, our T.A. brought up what he called "the raven paradox". From my recollection it went as follows: Assume all ravens are black. (for all x in the domain, if x is a raven, then x is black) so... (for all x if x is not black then x is not a raven). The idea is to show that nature's uniformity is weird. If one sees a white cat...that white cat logically adds credence to the assumption that all ravens are black because the domain (of living things?) is now what it was -1. The problem of induction is very interesting and this example made it even more so as it included stuff we've learned in 165 directly! 

The assignment is going well or at least I hope it is and I'm not deluding myself into thinking it is when it is not. Some parts were quite challenging to wrap my head around (well... to sort through and keep things in place where they belong, mentally). We've yet to finish it entirely so I will leave any further comments  until we've finished or have received the evaluation of it. 

SLOG Post #1

I'm fairly new to "blogging" and the instructions on the hand-out seemed to give some freedom in how this is written so I'm not sure if how I am going to go about writing this is okay.

My first impressions of the class having gone through one and a half weeks of it are mostly positive. Of course my opinion on the course may change as the weeks go by but I hope they do not. I found myself thinking "Yes . . . that makes so much sense" throughout the lectures we have had so far be it from the first day when Danny was explaining the marking scheme or the last lecture on Monday where we learned more about quantifiers. Looking at things I would not normally think about in terms of code and how it would execute or return given certain arguments ( i.e. the empty set) is strangely compelling for some reason.

I would consider myself a logical person for the most part so being able to express that using the language we encountered in the lectures, particularly the notation some of which I had not seen before and some of which I had previously learned about but were brought to the foreground of my mind again. for example, I had not seem some of the notation for universal and existential claims before but I encountered the universal "upside-down A" notation in my Linear Algebra class and now have a short-cut for note taking. Moreover, if I need to express the ideas of a claim being universal or existential I now have terms with which to label the claim.

The tutorial test and assignment went well for me I think! Sometimes I find the tutorials for some classes do not so directly relate to the material which we are learning in lecture sometimes and that is frustrating but it does not seem to be the case in csc165. Working in groups in the tutorial is an excellent way to go about doing the assignment as it allows stronger students to learn by teaching the weaker students and the weaker students to learn from the stronger students. I find that one of the best ways to get a better understanding of certain material is through teaching it or explaining it to someone who does not know the material as well, needs clarification, or does not know anything about the material at all.

Definitely not sure if this is enough writing but I feel like it summarizes almost all I have to say about the class one week into it.