I’m so old school, you won’t believe just what you’re seein
I write rhymes in Proto-Indo-European
Judging by the numbers, I’m 2600, not 64
Unless preceded by ‘Commodore’
"The Art of War" was written by an old friend of mine
Me and Sun Tzu BFF until the end of time
I been defined as an old man since Genesis
Get off my lawn, exodus my premises
Evacuation is the message I’m communicating
Let me get back to what I’m best at, illuminating
Elevating since the days of Gilgamesh
Still fresh, hotter than the blaze that killed Koresh
Yo let’s go, Waco to Marrakesh
My mode is dope but it sure aint Depeche, no 
Fresh flows? I like the tried and true ones
I’m more crafty than tie dye and glue guns

CHORUS
I’m older than the old school, nearly prehistoric
I'm top of my senior class, you’re clearly sophomoric
You can’t believe what I had up my sleeve cuz my
Great grand-parents were named Adam and Eve 

My rhymes come free like the shooter off a back screen
The vaccine against the losers in their whack scene
Relaxing: got my feet up and a drink in my hand
I'm always on the ball, like playing Missile Command,
Marble Madness, or Centipede -- the classic games
I'm dropping old-school fire, call me Jurassic flames
With massive brains so big they're bending space and time
You like delicious rhymes? Come get a taste of mine
Fire, water, earth, and air: that’s my ontology
I kinda feel the wheel is new-fangled technology
Forget the latest model, I follow Aristotle
The copasetic Peripatetic, so I skip the bottle
Sip my wine straight out the amphora
Cuz if you like your MCs old, you know I’m handsomer 
Than most, celebrating with a toast worth a facebook post
I may be old, but yo, I’m still advancing coast to coast

CHORUS

I aint gonna lie, I’m an older guy
I don’t know tae kwan do, but yo I take down Cobra Kai {oh myyy}
 With my superior mind, don’t need no crane maneuver
I’m provin all of the time, consistent brain improver


Older Than The Old School

Yo don’t step to my crew—you can’t rattle those people
I’m more requested than the Battletoads sequel
at Game Stop.  We ain’t impressed with your name drop
or claimin innovation when you makin the same slop
My crew’s blowin up like a bomb burst
I’m the logic Chuck Taylors: I’m provin the Converse
Dude’s comin through like a huge triceratops
Computations measured by teraflops
Man I love a paradox: that’s where the fun begins
Chumps freakin out but I'm just wonderin
Stackin paper:   brand-new manuscripts
New Proofs to me are like Bamboo to pandas’ lips
I'm more prolific than Thomas Aquinas
Known in both Dakotas and twice the Carolinas
No words can define us—it’s ineffable
Like finitude in FOL the style is inexpressible

CHORUS
Goin out tonight for a laugh with my Canadians			
 always right, like half of pi radians					
Circadian rhythm ain’t the only one I bounce to		
8-bit thunder's what my sound amounts to 			

I get wicket like I’m from the forest moon of Endor
Spend more dollars on computers than a Benz or 
Beemer. Droppin science like Cosima
From Orphan Black.  I stick to facts, not a dreamer
Nerds of a feather together you see us flockin
Better at conjecture than poppin and lockin
Live my whole life in beast mode
Even on the overnight flight into Heathrow

CHORUS

I mix chaos with control, blend logic and soul,
Combine fine-grained analysis with knowledge of the whole.  
The role I play is that of a solar ray:
Create illumination and shine like it’s gold lame
Enola Gay can’t beat the fire I’m layin down
If you can’t stand the heat, don’t stay around
Rap  game Baggins I heed the call, see
First name Dragon my beats are Ball-Z
not Wall Street:  skip the cocaine and Rogaine
Still I light it up like Hank Hill with propane
‘No pain no gain’?     That sayin's hella cliché
I know the game like Stringer Bell or wee-bay
Free play is not my style, I’m on a knowledge quest
Gotta be the M C… who knows logic best
My arguments are all knock-down
That’s how I got the logic game on lock-down

CHORUS

π/2 Radians

LYRICS

CHORUS: 
Illuminator, proof creator
Truth elucidator and debate adjudicator
Tlluminator, proof creator
I’m the finished product, others stuck testing beta
Illuminator, proof creator
Others blindly guessing while I’m backing it up with data
Illuminator, proof creator
Drop some knowledge now and a lot more later

Sometimes I rhyme slow, sometimes with more rapidity
When life gives me lemons yo I cook with more acidity
Validity lies at the heart of every argument I make
Man you can’t get rid of me I never bend or break
What it takes, that’s what I do: never fake or shirk
Tim Gunn loves what’s been done, cuz I make it work
Now I show you how I bring the wow factor back to the game
Try to take me out?—get a smack to the brain
Whatcha made of, whatcha afraid of?
You’re the foreigner and I’m the logical native
Creative: free-stylin at the chalkboard
Though the lecture’s over they’re still hoping that I talk more
Sophomores, juniors, and seniors-even them first years
See my final exam, it’s like their worst fears 
Realized, right there in paper and ink—don’t doubt it
Got so many questions but they got no time to think about it
  
CHORUS

When I’m on the mike the crowd comes alive, like 
Peter Frampton or number Johnny Five, I
Short circuit all your preconceptions
And beat Nate Silver’s election projections 
It’s illuminator, not illuminati
I’m the proof creator, not some non-existent posse
Chopping logic like a boss, but I don’t know karate
Trained to rock your brain, but I came to move your body
When I step through the door, the room’s elated
Like Jonathan Safran Foer, everything is illuminated
Then I crush you using only my mind, like I’m Darth Vader 
Never need to throw me a line, the illuminator
I blend styles like there’s 10 of me 
Like Tarski from Berkeley with Chuck from Public Enemy
The Logical Biggie but minus violence and misogyny
If Dre and Frege made a baby, I’d be the progeny

CHORUS

Proof Creator

BORN TO PROVE

I’m a gale-force wind, and you ain’t nothing but a light breeze
Call me Liz Lemon, ‘cause I’m working on my night cheese
Nightly grinding past two, to bank cheddar
Anything you can prove, I’ll prove better
Bed wetter. I’m fresh like bruschetta, trendsetter
And I never settle scores using force, my vendettas and wars
Are prosecuted on a higher plane
You try in vain to measure up to my entire brain
A crying shame, you’ll never make it man no matter how hard you try
Your little scribbles ‘bout some quibbles, they don’t qualify
For a promotion to the big-league logic show
If there’s new results, see, we gotta know
The who, what, when, but most of all the wherefore
I’m talking proof, son, the perfect string of ‘therefore’s
Are you into proving theorems? Oh my gosh we are too
Unbeatable just like the Kobayashi Maru

CHORUS
Baby I was born to prove (x5)

Going for the gold, I’m aiming straight for the podium
The competition’s scared shitless, like there’s Immodium
Clogging up their bowels, throwing in their towels 
Cause my skills’ve hit the physical limit of what the law allows
Look out now I’m coming through with the attitude
Make it Fünke like Tobias, the never nude
Or Maeby, she’s the dangerous cousin
Michael Cera never played the character McLovin
But I’m proving constantly, so call me the proofaholic kid
No need to come back, like Mayim Bialik did
From Blossom to Big Bang. I’m awesome like the Wu Tang
Brain-to-body ratio is bigger than that dude Krang
Dang, he’s the ninja turtle nemesis
My greatness is derivable from any set of premises
That’s right—that means it’s logically true that
I got a thousand times the knowledge that you have

CHORUS

Born To Prove

Proving ain’t easy but it has to be done
‘What’s your Erdős number?’ Man it’s negative one
You say ‘That’s impossible!’  Maybe for you, kid
I stand on giants’ shoulders all the way back to Euclid
Slightly more precisely, I trace it back to Frege
he is the alpha, and before you stands omega 
I’m only playing man, we’re far from the end
That’s why I keep on proving, don’t break don’t bend

I drop science—but it’s formal not physical
Never need a lab I transcend  the empirical
Timeless,   eternal,   the knowledge is immutable
Make it all explicit to banish  the inscrutable
Setting up a system  so that nothing is hidden
Axioms are listed; proof-rules are fit in
Perfectly together, now we’re good to go
With endless proofs most beautiful, an infinite flow

If there’s a conjecture—yo, I’ll solve it super fast
While you scratch your head and ask ‘Is this proof a supertask?’
Keep my proofs shorter than mc chris
If you ain’t nerdcore, that’s a reference you missed
Quick, clean, tight, my proofs are elegant
Never brute force, ad hoc, or irrelevant
Logic ain’t easy, but it’s always crystal clear
Russell said it right: it’s cold and austere

Proving ain't easy, but it’s necessary
From initial definition to the last corollary


Erdős Number

Your so-called theorems are crap, see
Cause what you call a proof ain’t gap-free
You took an invalid step, you ruined your rep,
 Now it's fallacy piled upon fallacy

My inferences are air-tight, never spurious
You thought this was a fair fight?  You can’t be  serious
The odds are stacked against you, like the state lottery 
Taking suckers’ money who don’t know no probability
Theory.  You can’t get near me, you hear me? 
'cause I expand minds like Timothy Leary   
Take Lincoln’s advice:   keep your mouth shut, fool
You’re provably eliminable, just like the cut rule
Yeah, I had to mention Gerhard Gentzen’s
Hauptsatz—do I have your attention?
Outclassed! If you can’t comprehend a
Logical defender, never surrender
I drop proofs in exchange for legal tender
Tuition’s mandatory when my services are rendered
Though because I love it yo I’d do it for free
Or at least to get the logic jokes on xkcd 

[chorus]

There are white folks...

Your attempts at arguments evince a word salad
My hair must be a bird, 'cause your argument's invalid
You think so sloooow you’re like a brain turtle
incomplete, but not like Kurt Gödel
Meant when he proved his second theorem
Your pages of proofs?  Nobody wants to hear ‘em
The best you can muster is a trivial corollary
You’re sittin wishin hopin for a visit from the Proof fairy
Oh –  hate to break the bad news
But she’s like the Easter Bunny or a sane Tom Cruise

Drop the empty set and get with the best you met

Drop the infimum, and get with the supremum
Drop the minimum, get with the maximum      

[chorus]

Drop the Ø

Whatcha call the logic mob?  It's the Association
A. S. L. not acronym, but abbreviation
'Symbolic logic' is what   the S L stands for
We rock it harder on the chalkboard than the dance floor
The scope is global you know,    like world-wide
Earth’s radius squared, times 4 pi    
Logicians! Make a wave of sound
Boost the amplitude til you’re shakin' the ground
Not just coast to coast, you’re thinking too small
Continent to continent yeah we bring it to ‘em all
except Antarctica--We’ll stick too what we know
Leave that to the penguins and geologists who study the snow
Uh oh, no, I aint dissin on geologists
In fact I love them cuz they stand up to apologists
for plutocrats buyin pseudo-science  attacks
Lemme drop an inconvenient truth: you can’t buy the facts
 
How you look, Where you’re from, who you love, it don’t matter, dude
Anyone can join Logicians With Attitude
L W A  We’re  here to make it clear
Women and men: join in from both hemispheres

I’m the acolyte, right? Of the A S L
That means I Do it for the love of the game cause it don’t pay us well
I feel compelled to describe the life conditions
Of we happy few, we band of logicians
Oh I’m quotin Shakespeare, we aint illiterate y’all
You want a great idea? The A S L delivers it all
Fall winter spring and summer via publication
three journals in all, disseminatin information
that the world could use, spread the good news
logical gospel, the one that ya should choose
Dude, whatcha waitin for? sign up for membership
Plan in January get ready for the December trip
To a national meeting of our association
pack your pen and paper cause it’s gonna be a killer education
Greater than any one you’ve ever seen
Hit the heart of the target like Katniss Everdeen

CHORUS

Logicians!  Rep your set -
 Let em know
the set you reppin aint empty
Here we go

All the way from Zambia to Canada to the brand is international
Docta Spock’ll mock us ‘cause he thinks that we’re too rational
Where on the globe do logicians go crazier?
Down south: yes Australasia
Making logics that are products of a great mind
one sentence true and false at the same time:
A true paradox --  Shock ya like a tazer
I came to pay respect, the ASL-raiser
Love the players love the game
How you know you won? When a theorem bears your name
Filthy Lucre ain’t the aim
We only search for knowledge, not fortune or fame,
Cuz see, We aint makin headlines on NBC or Xinhua
that don’t make us bitter like coffee beans or quinoa
I paid my dues – straight to Poughkeepsie
If you ain’t ASL, you got no way to eclipse me

CHORUS

Ask not what logic can do for you
But rather what conjectures you can prove

the illuminator

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