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From: blaak@csri.toronto.edu (Raymond Blaak)
Subject: Re: Comments on "The Emperor's New Mind
Message-ID: <1990Sep13.161744.11795@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
References: <47000003@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <47000004@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 90 20:17:44 GMT
Lines: 19

igl@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Ian Glendinning) writes:

>The Goedel argument actually runs something like:
>G: There is no proof of G in this system.

xhg0998@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:

>What is G in Goedel's theorem's case? The very definition of G involves
>recursing reference to itself and is therefore not defined. If you plug
>anything specific into G, then the definition of G does not hold any more.
>This is similar to S in the S statement. 

There is a difference between program and data. G is simply the set of
characters "There is no proof of G in this system", and so is perfectly well
defined. When it becomes time to interpret G, that is when you have to decide
how to handle the recursion.

Ray
(blaak@csri)