Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Yet Another Spurious Proof
Message-ID: <781@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Nov-85 19:18:41 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.781
Posted: Thu Nov  7 19:18:41 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 15:30:01 EST
References: <1790@watdcsu.UUCP> <2004@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2030@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 18
Summary: A completely spurious proof


In article <2030@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>I think this just shows to go you that you don't understand the proof.
[That there is a true statement which God cannot recognize as true.]
>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.
>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?
This kind of sentence, including that used in the orginal "proof", are self-
referential.  If self-referential statements are allowed, you can prove
anything and everything.  In general, self-referential sentences cannot be
regarded as statements (i.e., as things which are true or false).  So the
entire "proof" collapses.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108