Laws of Form [Hardcover]

G. Spencer Brown (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 141 pages
• Publisher: Julian Press; 1st edition (September 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517527766
• ISBN-13: 978-0517527764
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #651,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding intro to logic without Quantifiers, October 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Laws of Form (Paperback)

This book is indeed not much more than a very elegant re-exposition of Boolean algebra and the propositional calculus.
Furthermore, the essence of Brown's mathematical innovations were discovered by C S Peirce as early as 1885 (but published only after LoF was published). Nevertheless, LoF is no mean feat.
It radically simplifies sentential logic, switching circuit calculations, syllogisms. I use this book to solve logic problems arising in the computer programs I write.

Outside of electrical engineering, only a few mathematicians and logicians work with logic and Boolean algebra, which should be as commonly known as calculus and linear algebra.

I purchased this book in 1974, and have read many times since. EMail me at [e-mail] if you want a copy of my academic paper explaining the value of Spencer Brown's achievement.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laws of Form ( huh? ), January 23, 2003

By 

Thomas Howard Hoover (Fairmont, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laws of Form (Paperback)

In a way, George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of Form" is an elaborate math puzzle. The author has given you the bare minimum of information to figure out what the heck he is talking about; your assignment ( should you choose to accept it ) is to investigate the fields of logic, symbolic logic, Boolean logic, and set theory, to attempt to reconstruct the mathematics behind the so-called Calculus of Indications presented in the book. In my own case, it took almost seven years of occasional attention to come up with the essential idea behind the math, namely the symmetry between AND-spaces and OR-spaces. It may not take you that long.
Contrary to what some other reviewers have written, Bertrand Russell did not praise this book--he seems to have been just as baffled by it as anyone else. He did praise the ideas presented in the book, but only after Spencer-Brown met with him and explained it to him.
It seems likely that the sections of the book were developed as lecture notes to be handed out in class. Presumably the professor would tell you what he was talking about, and the handouts would be supplemental reading. Unfortunately, all that we get in the book is the supplemental reading.
When you are looking for a tool, you don't want, or need, a math puzzle. This is why the notation and concepts presented in the book have never caught on with philosophers, mathematicians and engineers in spite of their clear superiority over the techniques of syllogism logic, symbolic logic, Boolean logic and set theory.
I have had a lot of fun with this book, but you shouldn't think you're going to get a lot out of it in your first reading.
...

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cheaper edition, please, please!!, September 16, 2000

By 

thersities (Christchurch New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laws of Form (Paperback)

This book is indeed mainly a new (but better) notation for Boolean algebra, a review of how Boolean algebra can be used to represent formal logic, all with New Age trappings derived from Wittgenstein, R D Laing, and from dubious etymology. To top it all off, Spencer Brown's claim that his formalism would be needed to prove the Four Color Theorem and Fermat's Last Theorem has been emphatically falsified.

Nevertheless, this is an astounding book. Boolean algebra is the formalism upon which all of information technology rests. Formal logic deserves a far greater place in educational practice than has been the case in recent decades. A number of Brown's more basic ideas should be incorporated into the junior high curriculum. Finally, some of Brown's advanced ideas such as the imaginary truth value, that memory precedes time, and so forth, deserve more academic attention than they have gotten to date. I emphatically believe that there is a lot here from which the professional mathematician and logician could benefit.