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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Yet Another Spurious Proof
Message-ID: <2118@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 01:08:28 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2118
Posted: Wed Nov  6 01:08:28 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 05:41:42 EST
References: <2004@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2030@pyuxd.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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In article <2030@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

[ A proof was proffered which claimed that there must be at least one true
  statement which cannot be recognized as true by God.  My contention was
  that the proof was flawed because it assumed that God was like a formal
  system in a particular way; I then showed how the statement could be
  recognized as true (but erroneously) in one facility, and thus correctly
  recognized to be false in the main part. Rich's reply: ]

>I think this just shows to go you that you don't understand the proof.
>A simplification of such an example is the statement "You will say that
>this statement is false."  If I ask you if this is true, what will your
>answer be?  There can be no answer to this that YOU can give that would be
>correct.

Au contraire.  In analogy to my contradiction to the first problem, I could
claim it is false, and then (quite correctly) claim it to be true.  I could
also claim it to be not true because it attempts a paradox.   This
is a true statement, and it falsifies the orginal statement.  (Of course,
it's not really a proper 1st order statement either.  But that's just the
point.)  That's the problem with the first "proof"; it only works if God's
mind is a formal system.

>The same thing applies to god.  But note that this "some sort of facility"
>exists in a sense, and is nothing unique to god.  After all, you just
>figured out that you couldn't give a correct answer to that question put to
>you.  Didn't you?

No, I stepped through the formalist crack and made a meta-statement about
the orginal statement.  This new statement was true, but it did not say that
the orginal statement was false.  Or I could simply make two statements with
the knowledge that one was false.  Either way, since I am not a formal
system (as far as I know), the claim is bogus.

Charley Wingate