Re: Goedel - interesting problem?

From: Chris Menzel (cmenzel_at_remove-this.tamu.edu)
Date: 06/03/04 

Date: 3 Jun 2004 17:13:10 GMT

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 11:03:11 +0200, Tron Furu <tronfuru@frisurf.no> said:
> > On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 05:16:58 +0200, Tron Furu <tronfuru@frisurf.no> said:
> > > To the degree that the working mechanism of Goedel's Proof involve
> > > what pre-Fregian Logic classified as fallacies,
> >
> > That degree would be zero. There is no fallacy of any sort anywhere in
> > Godel's proof.
>
> Strange that so many people going on about the Liar Paradox etc.

Nothing strange about it, really. Someone has a fuzzy grasp of the
analogies between the Liar and the Godel sentence and, without
bothering actually to learn enough to understand the latter, attributes
to it the pathologies of the former. It's just typical crackpottery.

> Quoting you from below: "...learn enough to understand what the theorem
> actually says ..." Having gotten through GEB I thought I did understand what
> it says, although it had been said in another way than Goedel said it
> himself; but I take it that the way he said it is crucial, then.

Not really. The version in GEB is fine.

> Source of confusion: if math is third order logic,

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I take it you are alluding to some
sort of type theoretic reconstruction that requires quantification over
properties of properties of individuals. Or something. I don't think
that's a terribly common approach to the foundations of mathematics
anymore...

> and logic can be expressed in ordinary language ....

Well, it can be expressed in English, but I wouldn't call it a part of
ordinary language, at least not the more advanced parts of mathematical
logic. Notions of completeness, consistency, etc are not concepts from
ordinary language.

> > or turn
> > to the study of more appropriate sources, e.g., Austin or the later
> > Wittgenstein.
>
> Austin? Speech Act theory? I have read quite a lot of LW's "Philosophische
> Untersuchungen". I fail to see the connection. Source for what?

I was, perhaps hastily, attributing to you an interest in ordinary
language philosophy.

Chris Menzel

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Works of Fiction and Electomagnetic Pulses
    ... never takes a job as a bicycle courier, she's an erotic dancer who has a ... a boyfriend who is a vikinghis struggle as he sort of ... ensue when four of History's most disparate characters get together from ... strange outfit in London (the name of which is WRATH D (which is actually ...
    (rec.humor.oracle.d)
  • Re: Well, havent yet joined any walking group
    ... every time it's happened to me (me being the strange man, ... That's because the people you meet out in isolated spots are almost ... always decent types. ... The sort of person who's going to `do bad things' ...
    (uk.people.support.depression)
  • Re: British sense of humour?
    ... :>:Strange to relate we've never seen him since. ... :> Lucky he didn't kill her. ... :> While these guys no doubt have that sort of thing coming, ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • Re: Strange sorting behaviour in forms
    ... sorting and filtering. ... they want to sort on two adjacent columns (let's call them ... right-to-left and then sorting makes no difference. ... here's the *really* strange part: ...
    (microsoft.public.access.forms)
  • Re: Problems converting clipper data
    ... a 48 logical flag field that is accessed by some sort of bit handeling ... > unknown to the Clipper world. ... > key items and I think the numeric data, have very strange values, whcih I ...
    (comp.lang.clipper)