X-Message-Number: 4120 Date: Sat, 1 Apr 95 11:12:55 EST From: (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: liar's paradox Bob Ettinger doesn't believe in incompleteness theorems because the set theory paradoxes he's seen seem "impermissable" to him. Unfortunately, in the formal system equivalents of these paradoxes there are no rules of construction that say that the paradox cannot be phrased -- they are well formed strings in the formal systems. I'll give him one that he'll have harder trouble with. The paradox that is the core of Goedel's theorem, phrased in english, is approximately this: "This construct is true but cannot be proven to be true using the formal system of which it is a part." .pm Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4120