The Book
LoF emerged out of work in electronic engineering its author did around 1960, and from subsequent lectures on mathematical logic he gave under the auspices of the University of London's extension program. LoF has appeared in several editions, the most recent being a 1997 German translation, and has never gone out of print.
The mathematics fills only about 55pp and is rather elementary. But LoF's mystical and declamatory prose, and its love of paradox, make it a challenging read for all. Spencer-Brown was influenced by Wittgenstein and R. D. Laing. LoF also echoes a number of themes from the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead.
The entire book is written in an operational way, giving instructions to the reader instead of telling him what is. In accordance with G. S. Brown's interest in paradoxes, the only sentence that makes a statement that something is, is the statement, which says no such statements are used in this book. Except for this one sentence the book can be seen as an example of E-Prime.
Read more about this topic: Laws Of Form
Famous quotes containing the word book:
“Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which must yet have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)