X-Message-Number: 4222
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #4188 - #4193
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 17:13:54 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

As a mathematician (perhaps lapsed, but still a mathematician) I have this to
say about Goedel's proof. It is one thing to prove a theorem in an abstract
mathematical system. It is quite another thing to deal with the real world.
I don't know just which among the various messages I've missed that Ettinger
discusses Goedel's proof, but I would say that the context in which ANY
proof is used is all-important. Clearly Goedel did not wipe out mathematics
(though I think that mathematics has its own social problems, into which 
I will not go here).

I would suggest that rather than criticize Goedel's proof Ettinger might do
better to criticise those occasions in which people use it to prove something 
it does not prove. We do not live in a formal system, nor is the Universe a
formal system. Therefore Goedel's theorem has no hope of applying to the 
Universe or to the real world. Since we do, however, often USE formal systems,
it is very important to know their limitations. And that was the major insight
that Goedel had and proved with his proof.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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