Reddit reviews Logic: The Laws of Truth

Hey there.

You mention that your brother is bright -- how bright exactly? First of all, Computability and Logic is quite an advanced book that is typically aimed towards 2nd year logic students, and is usually for students who have taken a rigorous discrete mathematics course in their first year.

It delves quite deeply into the theory of logic and the philosophy of mathematics and would not be suited as a light exercise book for someone unless they have taken a math-heavy first-year logic course and are planning on taking up electrical engineering or something of the sort.

As for Hurley's book, a Concise Intro to Logic, well, this is on the other side of the spectrum -- it is very watered down compared to other logic readings, and pales in comparison (to most other introductory logic books) with regard to depth and breadth on formal logic.

It's usually aimed at first-year philosophy students who are taking introductory courses in logic or critical thinking, and most of it is simply rote-learning certain forms of argument as well as a lot of "quick and dirty" techniques which mimic that of a dry maths textbook. If you're looking for an interesting exposition into logic, then this book is certainly not it -- it would serve better as a high-school introduction for logic, and if prescribed to anyone older, would be very lackluster.

Here are some suggestions for you:

• Raymond Smullyan's A Beginner's Guide to Mathematical Logic
  
  
• Nicholas JJ's Logic: The Laws of Truth
  
  
• Peter Smith's An Introduction to Formal Logic
  
  
• RL Simpson's Essentials of Symbolic Logic
  
  If you're looking for mathematically-oriented logic puzzles, then you should check out Smullyan's series of puzzle books. You can find them on Amazon.
  
  
  
  
  

Well.. you can order from Amazon and choose priority shipping (and it will arrive tomorrow) I guess.

Oh yea, interesting that they teach number theory even in CS. I guess CS is most mathematical field if you compare it other fields except math?

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I haven't gotten into this stuff very deep, I am studying through this. I am very sure I wanna pursue math but there are only limited amount of areas to have time to study and I am not quite sure how 'active' the field is on that area (foundations of mathematics).