Laws of Form

This volume is a collection of articles on themes related to the book Laws of Form by George Spencer-Brown. Laws of Form was first published in 1969 and brings forth a new articulation of the foundations of thought. In Laws of Form we have a mathematical formalism based on one symbol and an approach to the question how the world would appear if a distinction could be drawn. Laws of Form does not answer the question how, given nothing as a beginning, a distinction can, indeed must, inevitably take place. This second question must, in its own structure, be left to each individual thinker. Nevertheless, Laws of Form, beautifully written and content free (form is emptiness, emptiness is form) is the most powerful mathematical text on the edge of nothing that has been produced since Euclid's Elements. These papers are a tribute to Spencer-Brown and his singular achievement.