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- H. Gaifman (2000). What Godel's Incompleteness Result Does and Does Not Show. Journal of Philosophy 97 (8):462-471.In a recent paper S. McCall adds another link to a chain of attempts to enlist Gödel’s incompleteness result as an argument for the thesis that human reasoning cannot be construed as being carried out by a computer.1 McCall’s paper is undermined by a technical oversight. My concern however is not with the technical point. The argument from Gödel’s result to the no-computer thesis can be made without following McCall’s route; it is then straighter and more forceful. Yet the argument fails in an interesting and revealing way. And it leaves a remainder: if some computer does in fact simulate all our mathematical reasoning, then, in principle, we cannot fully grasp how it works. Gödel’s result also points out a certain essential limitation of self-reflection. The resulting picture parallels, not accidentally, Davidson’s view of psychology, as a science that in principle must remain “imprecise”, not fully spelt out. What is intended here by “fully grasp”, and how all this is related to self-reflection, will become clear at the end of this comment.Reading list | Discuss | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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While Gödel's (first) incompleteness theorem has been used to refute the main contentions of Hilbert's program, it does not seem to have been generally used to stress that a basic ingredient of that program, the concept of formal system as a closed system - as well as the underlying view, embodied in the axiomatic method, that mathematical theories are deductions from first principles must be abandoned. Indeed the logical community has generally failed to learn Gödel's lesson that Hilbert's concept of formal system as a closed system is inadequate and continues to use it as if there were no incompleteness theorem.
In this paper I will stress the role of Gödel's incompleteness theorem in showing the inadequacy of such a concept of formal system and the need for a more articulated view of mathematical theories. More generally I will argue that Gödel's result entails that, as an alternative to mathematical logic, a new concept of logic is required: logic as the theory of communicating inference processes.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Gödel's first incompleteness theorem shows that no axiomatic theory can prove all mathematical truths, while Gödel's second incompleteness theorem shows that a specific mathematical result is unprovable. A famous mathematician of the time, David Hilbert, had asked for a proof that an important axiomatic theory was consistent, and Godel showed that such a proof could not be carried out within the axiomatic theory itself, and presumably could therefore not be established in a convincing way outside of the theory either.
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| | Scholar | More options ... Kurt Godel, the greatest logician of our time, startled the world of mathematics in 1931 with his Theorem of Undecidability, which showed that some statements in mathematics are inherently "undecidable." His work on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of number theory, and the consistency of the axiom of choice and the continuum theory brought him further worldwide fame. In this introductory volume, Raymond Smullyan, himself a well-known logician, guides the reader through the fascinating world of Godel's incompleteness theorems. The level of presentation is suitable for anyone with a basic acquaintance with mathematical logic. As a clear, concise introduction to a difficult but essential subject, the book will appeal to mathematicians, philosophers, and computer scientists.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Gödel began his 1951 Gibbs Lecture by stating: “Research in the foundations of mathematics during the past few decades has produced some results which seem to me of interest, not only in themselves, but also with regard to their implications for the traditional philosophical problems about the nature of mathematics.” (Gödel 1951) Gödel is referring here especially to his own incompleteness theorems (Gödel 1931). Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem (as improved by Rosser (1936)) says that for any consistent formalized system F, which contains elementary arithmetic, there exists a sentence GF of the language of the system which is true but unprovable in that system. Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem states that no consistent formal system can prove its own consistency.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Roger Penrose is justly famous for his work in physics and mathematics but he is _notorious_ for his endorsement of the Gödel argument (see his 1989, 1994, 1997). This argument, first advanced by J. R. Lucas (in 1961), attempts to show that Gödel’s (first) incompleteness theorem can be seen to reveal that the human mind transcends all algorithmic models of it1. Penrose's version of the argument has been seen to fall victim to the original objections raised against Lucas (see Boolos (1990) and for a particularly intemperate review, Putnam (1994)). Yet I believe that more can and should be said about the argument. Only a brief review is necessary here although I wish to present the argument in a somewhat peculiar form.
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| | Other links: pdcnet.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... We show how second order logic incompleteness follows from incompleteness of arithmetic, as proved by Gödel.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Various authors of logic texts are cited who either suggest or explicitly state that the Gödel incompleteness result shows that some unprovable sentence of arithmetic is true. Against this, the paper argues that the matter is one of philosophical controversy, that it is not a mathematical or logical issue.
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| | Other links: hesperus.dbourget.com | Scholar | At my library | More options ... In "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics" Wittgenstein discusses an argument that goes from Gödel’s incompleteness result to the conclusion that some truths of mathematics are unprovable. Wittgenstein takes issue with this argument. Wittgenstein’s remarks in this connection have received very negative reaction from some very prominent people, for example, Gödel and Dummett. The paper is a defense of what Wittgenstein has to say about the argument in question.
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| | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... <span class='Hi'>Storrs</span> McCall continues the tradition of Lucas and Penrose in an attempt to refute mechanism by appealing to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (McCall 2001). That is, McCall argues that Gödel’s theorem “reveals a sharp dividing line between human and machine thinking”. According to McCall, “[h]uman beings are familiar with the distinction between truth and theoremhood, but Turing machines cannot look beyond their own output”. However, although McCall’s argumentation is slightly more sophisticated than the earlier Gödelian anti-mechanist arguments, in the end it fails badly, as it is at odds with the logical facts.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... In the paper some applications of Gödel's incompleteness theorems to discussions of problems of computer science are presented. In particular the problem of relations between the mind and machine (arguments by J.J.C. Smart and J.R. Lucas) is discussed. Next Gödel's opinion on this issue is studied. Finally some interpretations of Gödel's incompleteness theorems from the point of view of the information theory are presented.
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| | Other links: springerlink.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Discussion of H. Gaifman, What Godel's incompleteness result does and does not show
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