Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!garnet!weemba
From: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: pseudo-logical gibberish
Keywords: Pseudo-science, Convergence
Message-ID: <22522@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 11 Jan 88 09:41:35 GMT
References: <3445@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <7706@eddie.MIT.EDU> <5409@sol.ARPA> <4079@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <534@gethen.UUCP> <4135@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <22516@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
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Reply-To: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
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Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central
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In-reply-to: jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (James Wilbur Lewis)

Oh wow.  Another Logician [TM] jumps in.  I have no idea what the fuck
anyone is talking about anymore--there was something about near-death
and pre-birth experiences--so I'll just limit myself to technical matters.

I'll just mention as an aside that Samuel Beckett has always claimed to
have clear memories of life before birth.  It was, apparently, horrible.
It's hard to disagree with him after reading his complete works, espe-
cially, in this particular case, _The Unnameable_.

>-As a Logician (yes, I am also that), I can tell you that this is not true.
>-No Mathematical theory can be employed to prove its own consistency ...
>-unless it is inconsistent.

No Mathematical theory strong >enough to encompass Peano arithmetic< can
prove its own consistency.  There are specially designed toy systems that
can prove their own consistency.  Raymond Smullyan once designed a special
language SELF (Smullyan's Easy Language For) that made self-reference
extremely easy.

>					     I must disagree.  One of the
>first things they teach in Logician School is that a "theory" is [...]
>Eh?  I thought you were talking about "theories", a.k.a. "theorems", which
>can often be verified with no trouble at all.

Go back to Logician [TM] school.  A theory is a set of sentences closed
under Logical [TM] deduction.  A theorem is a particular sentence that
follows Logically [TM] from a given set of axioms.

>					        But then I'm not a
>Logician, so what do I know?

Exactly.

>-  It may be that
>-infinite sets do not even exist in the first place (meaning that it may be
>-possible to prove the Axiom of Infinity of set theory inconsistent with the
>-rest of set theory).  It all goes back to Mathematical intuition in the end.
>
>WTF are you talking about?  The integers don't exist?  Huh?

He's talking about, that FALFTWK, it is mathematically Conceivable that
the notion of infinite sets Are Self-Contradictory.  Perhaps Mr ">" isn't
really aware that he's a closet Platonist.

>							      And what's
>this "Axiom of Infinity"?

That there exists an infinite set.

>			    Does it have anything to do with the Axiom of
>Choice?

~AI => AC.

>->Various tenets of Quantam Theory have been
>->PROVEN true - not by people asserting that they are true, but by
>->experimentation.

This is now followed by an irrelevancy, as Mr ">->" hasn't revealed what
tenets of "Quantam Theory [sic]" have been PROVEN true.

>-The Aspect experiments (which you refer to) did not prove the Copenhagen
>-version of Quantum Theory.

Please, it is the Copenhagen ``interpretation''.  As such it is not really
subject to proof; CI is an agreement to continue to use certain good old
fashioned terminology to describe quantum stuff, but then to give up cer-
tain good old fashioned causality notions.  The set of classical notions
cannot all be simultaneously applied to quantum stuff.  MW reverses the
above, keeping classical causality but freaking on the ontology.

>Do you know the difference between a formal system (like quantum theory)
>and a theorem of that system (existence of local hidden variables)?

Let's see: ``quantum theory'' is not a formal system.  I'm not even sure
that ``quantum theory'' is.  Are we speaking in Tongues [TM] today?

The existence of LHV is not a theorem.  Their non-existence usually is,
in most quantum theories.  Note the plural.

>Maybe they don't get to that until Graduate Logician School.

I wouldn't know.  I learned my Logic on sleazy streetcorners.

>Look, calling yourself a Physicist or a Logician [TM] isn't going to impress
>very many people on this net.

You're right.  My calling you a Loudmouth [TM] isn't going to impress very
many people either on alt.flame, although I'm sure Peed [TM] will try to
find a way; things must be pretty boring in Illinois at this time of year.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
I give up. Maybe Wiener was right: they ARE gibbering morons.--P Torek