Logic in Action: Time, Inconsistency, and Computation

Mariami Gamsakhurdia & Stella Mahler

What happens when things are not quite consistent, and when they don’t stay the same over time?

In this course, we explore new ways of thinking about logic that go beyond the classical world of strict true and false. In computer science, we often deal with systems that evolve, grow, and sometimes even contradict themselves. So we need logical tools that are flexible enough to keep up.

We will study paraconsistent logic, where contradictions do not immediately collapse everything into chaos. Instead, we learn how to reason in a controlled and meaningful way even when information clashes.

We will also explore linear temporal logic, where truth is not static but unfolds over time. Statements can refer not only to what is true now, but also to what will be true, or must remain true, in the future.

Overall, this course is about learning to think in systems where logic is not fragile, but surprisingly resilient, whether in the presence of change, time, or inconsistency.