Chaotic Logic -- Copyright Plenum Press © 1994

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The ideas presented here were developed as a solo project. There was very little collaborative thinking involved, and what little there was involved peripheral issues. Over the years, however, many people, institutions and organizations have helped my work in less direct ways.

First of all, a few sections of this book overlap significantly with previously published articles. Thanks are due to the relevant editors and publishers for their permission to duplicate the odd section, page or paragraph here. The Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, Volume 15-1, edited by Paul Levinson, contains the papers "Psychology and Logic" and "Self-Reference, Computation and Mind" which overlap considerably with Chapter 4 and Section 7.3 respectively. Paul Levinson is an excellent editor who has been very supportive of my work. The Proceedings of the First, Second and Third Annual Conferences of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology, edited by Robin Robertson and Allan Combs (to be published shortly by Erlbaum, perhaps with a more felicitous title), contains the papers "A Cognitive Equation of Motion" and "Belief Systems as Attractors," which overlap with parts of Chapters Eight and Nine.

Next there are more personal acknowledgements. My previous two books did not include "acknowledgements" sections, so the thanks given here apply not only to Chaotic Logic but also to its prequels: The Structure of Intelligence (Springer-Verlag, 1993), and The Evolving Mind (Gordon and Breach, 1993).

In no particular order, I would like to acknowledge debts of one kind or another to:

Simon's Rock College, which I attended from 1982-85 and where I was introduced to Nietzsche, Whorf, Peirce, formal logic, dynamical systems theory and the philosophy of science, among other things. My unorthodox approach to intellectual work owes a lot to two Simon's Rock instructors, George Mandeville and Ed Misch, and also to the remarkably intelligent group of students who were my classmates at the Rock, especially Dave Goldberg, Bill Meinhardt, John Hancock, Mike Glanzberg, Scott Hughes, Ed Keller and Mike Duncan.

The mathematics faculty of Temple University -- their friendliness helped to restore my passion for mathematics, which, after a year-and-a-half at the Courant Institute, had nearly vanished for good. In particular, Donald Newman supported me at every stage of the arduous process of obtaining a Ph.D. in Mathematics.

Those few members of the UNLV Mathematics department who have supported me in my unusual choice of research topics: Harold Bowman, Malwane Ananda, Rohan Dalpatadu, Ashok Singh and George Miel.

The computer science department of Waikato University, where I am currently lecturing, particularly Lloyd Smith, the former department head, who made my schedule for this year! This book was written in Las Vegas but it was proofread in Hamilton; if it has fewer errors than my previous books this is because of the research-friendly New Zealand work schedule.

Fred Abraham, Sally Goerner, Larry Vandervert, Robin Robertson and Terry Marks, all affiliated with the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology, for being so supportive of my work (and also for helping me to improve my sometimes too-dense exposition). Thanks especially to Sally and Fred.

My mother Carol Goertzel and my grandfather Leo Zwell for their unflagging warmth and encouragement; also my father, Ted Goertzel, for his encouragement and for reading and critiquing my manuscripts despite their distance from his areas of expertise.

George Klir and George Kampis for placing my book in this series.

And finally, my son Zarathustra, my wife Gwen, and my brand new son Zebulon, for providing a warm, comfortable atmosphere in which to think, write and live.

                Ben Goertzel
                Hamilton, New Zealand
                April 1994