Russell & Godel

[elfprince13]

(let them have their dream)

Says the man quoting Bertrand Russell in his signature.

[Boothby]

(let them have their dream)

Says the man quoting Bertrand Russell in his signature.

Says the man so sure of himself....

[elfprince13]

Vell, Jesus was just zis guy, you know?

Based on every account we have of him, that's the one thing he couldn't be

Says the man so sure of himself....

I study physics, so it comes with the territory. Incidentally, do you know if he first said that before or after Gödel (who, incidentally, was very much a theist) stomped all over both his dreams and his surety? Alternatively, we can leave the snarking out of what is supposed to be a celebratory topic.

[Boothby]

I practice engineering, so I'm even WORSE than physicists!

And I didn't think I was being all that snarky....

[Boothby]

Besides, what in the world does Godel have to do with anything regarding any of this? I know *I* didn't bring him up.

[Wind Swept]

Yay, a (mild) flame war (in need of more fuel). There was something missing—a hole in Pweb's heart—that has been filled this day.

[Wind Swept]

I only ask that no one believe anything so fully that there is no room for doubt.

[Boothby]

Chris,

If a flame war is like breaking your foot, this is like cutting a toe nail a little too close to the quick.

[Boothby]

Incidentally, do you know if he first said that before or after Gödel (who, incidentally, was very much a theist) stomped all over both his dreams and his surety? Alternatively, we can leave the snarking out of what is supposed to be a celebratory topic.

You mean Kurt Godel, who was convinced that heaven HAD to exist, even after his philosophy DENIED that even 2+2 had meaning?* Kurt Godel who starved to death for fear that "someone is trying to POISON me?" THAT Kurt Godel?

Bringing up Godel is sort of like bringing a chicken to a knife fight. Except it wasn't a knife fight. It wasn't really a fight at all. So I was real confused when you walked in with the chicken under your arm.


* This is, of course, Boothby's Fifth Law of Theological Debate: Deny all epistemology. "How can we ever really know anything?" Solipsism. Have I said how much I hate solipsism? It's a cheap, lazy, BS philosophy. It's a bad philosopher's way of throwing a handful of sand in his opponent's eyes, so he can run away.

But, of course, once you've claimed that you can never really know anything (that's the beauty of it), then you go ahead and state your belief as absolute.

That's sort of the point of Russell's quote. That's what it's fighting against.


Wait--did you bring up Godel just so you could spank my Russell quote?

[Luet]

Okay, that was my first attempt at splitting a thread. Sorry if I missed any posts.


Discuss!

[Mich]

Okay, that was my first attempt at splitting a thread. Sorry if I missed any posts.

I thought it was cleanly done. *golf clap*

[Luet]

Why, thank you. *bows*

[elfprince13]

You mean Kurt Godel, who was convinced that heaven HAD to exist, even after his philosophy DENIED that even 2+2 had meaning?* Kurt Godel who starved to death for fear that "someone is trying to POISON me?" THAT Kurt Godel?

Bringing up Godel is sort of like bringing a chicken to a knife fight. Except it wasn't a knife fight. It wasn't really a fight at all. So I was real confused when you walked in with the chicken under your arm.

For all his....oddities.....he was still an incredibly talented logician. I've found, quite the opposite of what you're saying, that the Incompleteness Theorems (along with the Uncertainty Principle & Bell's Inequality) are the best weapon I could have against someone who thinks that rationalism and empiricism are the be-all and end-all of human understanding. The fundamental scientific and mathematical results of the Twentieth century were to place limits on the abilities of science and mathematics.

* This is, of course, Boothby's Fifth Law of Theological Debate: Deny all epistemology. "How can we ever really know anything?" Solipsism. Have I said how much I hate solipsism? It's a cheap, lazy, BS philosophy. It's a bad philosopher's way of throwing a handful of sand in his opponent's eyes, so he can run away.

But, of course, once you've claimed that you can never really know anything (that's the beauty of it), then you go ahead and state your belief as absolute.

I don't think I've ever encountered someone who could both be meaningfully described as holding to solipsism and who held to any absolute other than solipsism itself. Can you give a more specific example of interaction you've had with someone that would fit this description so I can see where you're going with it?

That's sort of the point of Russell's quote. That's what it's fighting against. Wait--did you bring up Godel just so you could spank my Russell quote?

Yes. I thought there was a conglomeration of dramatic irony in that being a Russell quote, Russell's life work being an attempt at providing surety to mathematical results, and it being disemboweled by someone who encoded the ontological argument for God as modal logic proof in his spare time. Of course, I'd also say that that particular endeavor was axiomatically misguided (his proof relies on existence as a property that can be reasoned about), but as far which intellectual tradition I'd prefer to have "on my side", as it were, I'll take Gödel over Russell any day of the week. But mostly, my point was just that someone who takes Russell seriously has no business making cracks at the expense of other people's worldview (dreamy or otherwise). I don't know what branch of engineering you work in, but in theory of computation, Russell only really appears as an example of the sorts of nonsense an otherwise intelligent person can produce when they're driven by misguided surety. I suspect if you're familiar with the theories of Russell Humphreys, you can see the analogy I'd like to draw between their respective works, and the way in which Bertrand Russell's Principia is the result of EXACTLY the sort of misguided assurance his quote is warning against. Which is why I asked if he said it before or after the Principia got stomped on by Gödel, since I'm curious if the apparent dramatic irony was the result of 20/20 hindsight, or simply the result of a frustration with blind faith amongst religious practitioners coupled with a curious lack of self-examination.

[Boothby]

"...I've proven that logic and reason do not work!"

"And how have you done that?"

"Using logic and reason!"

So...Godel got it all right, did he? He didn't leave anything out?

[elfprince13]

"...I've proven that logic and reason do not work!"

That was not at all what he proved. He proved that are boundaries to what can be known through reason - specifically that any formal system is necessarily incomplete or inconsistent (or both), and that therefore, in any consistent formal system there are things with definite truth-values that are nonetheless undeterminable within that system.

So...Godel got it all right, did he? He didn't leave anything out?

You said you're an engineer, so now I really am curious what field of engineering you're coming from. Can't be EE/CE/CS/SE, because we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you had any formal background in computation whatsoever. I don't mean to be rude here, but quite frankly, I'm baffled by your response and don't know what else to say. If you can't be bothered to look at the proof formally, at least go pick up a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach. Heck, look at Turing's results with the Halting Problem, which makes very concrete the notion of formal undecidability (which is a natural consequence of Gödel's work).

I had assumed you were quoting Russell only because you were fond of his remarks on religion, but it's coming across as if you still take his essentially-19th-century optimistically-Enlightenment-driven view of rationalism seriously and are quite content to ignore all of the modern results in set theory, logic, and theory of computation. And most of quantum mechanics, for that matter - are you also willing to discard locality (or, empiricism forbid, counterfactual definiteness) in order to preserve a Newtonian view of (super-)determinism?


I'm not sure there's much meaningful discussion to be had here, until you at least properly understand what the Incompleteness Theorems entail. You're perfectly free not to accept them (preferably after having actually looked at the proofs involved), but if that's your choice, you should either find the error(s) in the relevant proofs (I should note here that this would probably land you both the Turing Award, and a Fields Medal if you're young enough for one of those), or just stay out of conversations involving the philosophy of logic/rationality for the same reason its usually best not to walk around in public with your pants off.

[Dr. Mobius]

[Boothby]

Elf Prince,

Mechanical Engineering.

I also took courses (unofficial minor) in philosophy, including logic--and it's complete opposite, theology.

I also had extracurricular courses in humor, which you apparently skipped over completely.

[Boothby]

And though I'd love to humor you on these great and wonderful depths of epistemological theorizing, I actually have to work for a living designing and producing things as a mechanical engineer.

If you look a little closer at my earlier discussion (the "I've proven...!" dialogue), you may find the humor in it. Maybe not.

[Boothby]

I don't think I've ever encountered someone who could both be meaningfully described as holding to solipsism and who held to any absolute other than solipsism itself. Can you give a more specific example of interaction you've had with someone that would fit this description so I can see where you're going with it?

Typically, it's with religious zealots. After showing them how the system of beliefs that they hold about their particular "One True God" (whichever one that might be) are woefully inconsistent, and do not make any sense whatsoever, I am typically met with, "Well, how can we ever really know ANYTHING!" Followed by an immediate and rapid descent into solipsism. Followed immediately thereafter by claims that their particular "One True God," is not only THE "One True God, but also the "Truth" (capital "T"), since it's all of a sudden impossible to disprove any statement made. So we travel from a reasonable set of beliefs (I'm thinking "mine," here), with a recognition of the tentative nature of beliefs, to a total degradation of epistemology (we can never really know anything), to absolute surety (re. the "One True God").

Hence the Bertrand Russell quote.

Other than that, I am no expert in Mr,. Russell, Mr. Godel (made 3/4 of the way through the book in High School, then found girls), Hegel, etc.

[Boothby]

because we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you had any formal background in computation whatsoever

Please tell me just what you mean by that. This conversation may have been over without me even realizing it.

[elfprince13]

"...I've proven that logic and reason do not work!"
"And how have you done that?"
"Using logic and reason!"
So...Godel got it all right, did he? He didn't leave anything out?

we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you had any formal background in computation whatsoever

Please tell me just what you mean by that. This conversation may have been over without me even realizing it.

You're perfectly free not to accept them (preferably after having actually looked at the proofs involved), but if that's your choice, you should either find the error(s) in the relevant proofs (I should note here that this would probably land you both the Turing Award, and a Fields Medal if you're young enough for one of those), or just stay out of conversations involving the philosophy of logic/rationality for the same reason its usually best not to walk around in public with your pants off.

You either just flunked out of every undergraduate computer science program in the country (and any math program that consists of more than calculus), or you have a good and valid reason for disregarding the fundamental mathematical development of the 20th century and are about to receive the Turing Award, and (depending on your age) a Fields medal. You'll probably also get a handful of Nobel prizes down the road, since you've just laid the theoretical groundwork for computing devices that break the Church-Turing thesis, which would have some crazy implications for our ability to run simulations of physical processes. I'm almost completely sure it isn't the latter of these things, and I respect your intelligence enough to assume that if you had actually studied these things you wouldn't be flunking out of the classes, which leads me back to saying that if you had formal training in computation, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Mechanical Engineering.

I also took courses (unofficial minor) in philosophy, including logic

Huh, I'm not surprised by Mech.E shorting you on the relevant background, but I'm shocked that a logic course (and a heavy philosophy course-load in general) would have skipped Gödel entirely, unless it didn't move beyond basic predicate logic. Was the philosophy department where you studied mostly classicists?

I also had extracurricular courses in humor, which you apparently skipped over completely.

I'm usually pretty good with humor, even if my own attempts at producing it are a little off-kilter at times. That said "So...Godel got it all right, did he? He didn't leave anything out?" doesn't really strike me as humor, unless this whole topic is asking for a giant instantiation of Poe's Law. On the other hand "If a flame war is like breaking your foot, this is like cutting a toe nail a little too close to the quick." and "I practice engineering, so I'm even WORSE than physicists!" were quite entertaining.

I actually have to work for a living designing and producing things as a mechanical engineer.

zing?

If you look a little closer at my earlier discussion (the "I've proven...!" dialogue), you may find the humor in it. Maybe not.

I think I might remember this topic, but I can't find it anywhere. If you were going for sarcasm in this discussion, I either really misread it, or you really missed the mark (or both).

Typically, it's with religious zealots. After showing them how the system of beliefs that they hold about their particular "One True God" (whichever one that might be) are woefully inconsistent, and do not make any sense whatsoever, I am typically met with, "Well, how can we ever really know ANYTHING!" Followed by an immediate and rapid descent into solipsism. Followed immediately thereafter by claims that their particular "One True God," is not only THE "One True God, but also the "Truth" (capital "T"), since it's all of a sudden impossible to disprove any statement made. So we travel from a reasonable set of beliefs (I'm thinking "mine," here), with a recognition of the tentative nature of beliefs, to a total degradation of epistemology (we can never really know anything), to absolute surety (re. the "One True God").

That's unfortunate, and I guess I've never encountered it in full force. I've encountered a much weaker variant when dealing with members of a Calvinist/Reformed tradition or when arguing about Islamic theology, where a view of God's transcendence and sovereignty as his defining attributes makes it impossible to say anything else about His nature. It seems backwards to invoke solipsism to defend any claim rather than to cut down any claim. In my own interactions, I've much more often seen the surety of blind faith move directly from cognitive dissonance into "la-la-la, I'm not listening, I just know it" than I have any other variant on such a discussion.

Hence the Bertrand Russell quote.

Hence my wondering about the timing of his production of that quote