X-Message-Number: 23909
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 22:26:20 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Goedel once more

Robert Ettinger, #23896:

>And once more, for those who insist Goedel's result is significant, I remind
>them that a sentence undecidable in one formal system can be made 
>decidable by
>expanding the formal system, which certainly shows that the problem is in the
>particular system.

In this case, though, expanding the formal system to remove one "problem" 
does not at all remove another, similar problem in the expanded system. You 
are forever chasing a chimera if you try to deal with the problem in this 
way. In other words, *any* formal system you construct along very general 
lines will have the Goedelian problem. Goedel's result, narrowly restricted 
to one formal system, may have only limited significance, but one must not 
overlook its full applicability.

Mike Perry

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