Re: My talk about Godel to the post-grads.

Chris Menzel wrote:
On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:00:44 +0100, John Jones <jonescardiff@xxxxxxx> said:
Chris Menzel wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:15:54 +0100, John Jones <jonescardiff@xxxxxxx>
said:
Chris Menzel wrote:

Well, lessee, PA + "PA is inconsistent" obviously proves "PA is
inconsistent".
No.
Oh jeez...pathetically clueless; more's the pity that your boundless
ignorance is willfully embraced. Sad and depressing to think folks
who might not know better
etc.

Stop banging your desk lid. Then respond to the rebuttal.

Look, JJ, there is just nothing to respond to. Suppose you challenge me
to a chess game and you begin by moving your King's Rook to your Queen's
Bishop 7 and claiming my QB Pawn in the process. I point out to you
that, well, I'd be happy to continue, but it's quite apparent that you
don't know the first thing about the rules of chess. I then provide you
with a list of fine references on the subject. But instead of studying
those references and learning the rules, you blithely insist on playing
according to what you intuitively *perceive* the rules of chess to be a
priori based on the self-evident "syntax" of "King", "Queen", "Bishop",
"Knight" "Rook", and "Pawn" and your extensive knowledge of medieval
literature (e.g., "Pawns can move two, or perhaps three, squares forward
or diagonally, in accordance with their nature, but only while under the
protection of a King unless they have been excommunicated by a black
Bishop").

Furthermore, you provide commentary on other players' games, critiquing
them vociferously in terms of your own wholly confused and
incomprehensible understanding of chess. You then demand that the
players respond to your "critiques". But what can they possibly say?
The only proper response is that you haven't the slightest clue what
chess is and that, to play and critique the play of others, you need to
educate yourself and, at a minimum, learn the rules that everyone else
is playing by. So long as you refuse to do so, your "critiques" are
going to be viewed simply as the muddle-headed rants of a willfully
ignorant, silly, and tiresome crank who deserves only to be scorned or,
at best, ignored.


I am trying to salvage what looks like a hopeless case. You are not getting the philsosophical project. The project reaches as far as what is taken for granted.

For example, I made no mention of the use of "+" in 'PA + "PA is inconsistent' which looks idiosyncratic: statements are hardly arraigned to display consistency by being added. But if the sign is 'technically' employed, to mean "inclusion" perhaps, then it seems that by taking it for granted we can include pretty well anything we want, whether it makes sense or no.

And it does not make sense in the instance you presented, for how would one 'include' in a consistent system an inconsistent statement? Any formal statement that tries to represent that is, as another author put it, unsound.

You are not looking closely enough. The only way we can include the statement is to propose 1) that something is at the same time something else. OR 2) we are referring to sign strings.

Now answer that. For it looks as though the statement 'PA + "PA is inconsistent" obviously proves "PA is inconsistent"' doesn't get out the starting gate.
.

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