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Re: sinking feeling



> Date:         Fri, 23 Sep 1994 13:16:23 -0500
> From:         Philip Delaquess <delaques@GCG.COM>
> Subject:      sinking feeling

> Y'know, friends, I've been reading the recent debate about 'any' with
> a mixture of amusement and confusion for what seems like weeks now,
> and this morning I got this kind of a sick, sinking feeling. It seems
> to me that y'all are trying to codify a system that is 1) complete,
> 2) consistant, and 3) capable of describing itself. Does the name
> Kurt Godel ring any bells? Can somebody convince me that you're not
> trying to do the impossible?

  Well, I haven't read Goedel in original (wouldn't probably do much
  good), but I have read Douglas Hofstadter's fine account of the
  principles and of some conclusions to be drawn ('Goedel, Escher,
  Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid') and been wondering myself.

  I know it's impossible to achieve those 3 aims simultaneously :-(,
  we have to draw the line somewhere, but where exactly?

  Ultimately (3) would be nice so that we wouldn't need an external
  metalanguage. Consistency? Well, the logical part of the grammar,
  certainly, but the attitudinals may well play havoc on that.
  Completeness? Nothing will ever be complete. However, I'd like to
  have it complete enough to cope comfortably with the main philosophical
  systems of the present day world (what ever they are, say from
  Neo-Thomism to Zen, from classical logics to quantum physics) in
  addition to the banalities - who needs Yet Another Language which is
  just plain banal, whatever the syntactical merits.

> Just wondering,

  So am I :-) I know I lose the track completely every now and then,
  but I know of no other way of mapping the territory - and it can
  be great fun :-))

> --Philip.

  So, do bear with me and my valiant comrades.

  co'o mi'e veion

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.i mi du la'o sy. Veijo Vilva sy.
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