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From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: Integer not expressable in less than 13 words
Message-ID: <15989@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 26 Apr 91 21:09:50 GMT
References: <15901@smoke.brl.mil> <1991Apr25.234539.24276@unislc.uucp>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <1991Apr25.234539.24276@unislc.uucp> ttobler@unislc.uucp (Trent Tobler) writes:
>No, no paradox.  The number simply does not exist.

Oh, good -- then we can conclude that all positive integers are
expressable in fewer than 13 English words.  That has ramifications
for data compression..

In case you didn't detect the sarcasm, I'm well aware of Godel's
work etc. but I don't think it helps answer the question "What is
wrong with this argument?".  Self-reference is not automatically
invalid; consider "This is a sentence."  There's nothing wrong
with that.  Even "This is not a sentence." is meaningful, albeit
false.  "The set of all sets that do not include themselves" is
not meaningful, but you can't lay the entire blame on self-reference.