Oh yes, it need not be neither. It just can't be both! Grant
Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 28, 2015, at 3:29 PM, Grant Holland <[email protected]> wrote: > > Glen, Eric, > > If "reality" is complete, must not then (assuming that it is at least as > complex as arithmetic), aka Godel, it be also inconsistent? > > Grant > > Sent from my iPhone > >>> On Dec 28, 2015, at 11:23 AM, glen <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> On 12/28/2015 06:30 AM, David Eric Smith wrote: >>> A language that is not even internally consistent presumably has no hope of >>> having an empirically valid semantics, since evidently the universe "is" >>> something, and there is no semantic notion of ambiguity of its >>> "being/not-being" some definite thing, structurally analogous to an >>> inconsistent language's being able to arrive at a contradiction by taking >>> two paths to answer a single proposition. >> >> It's not clear to me that the presumption is trustworthy. Isn't it possible >> that what is (reality) does not obey some of the structure we rely on for >> asserting consistency (or completeness)? In other words, perhaps reality is >> inconsistent. Hence, the only language that will be valid, will be an >> inconsistent language. Of course, that doesn't imply that just any old >> inconsistency will be tolerated. Perhaps reality is only inconsistent in >> very particular ways and any language that we expect to validate must be 1) >> inconsistent in all those real ways and 2) in only those real ways. >> >> Further of course, inconsistency is a bit like paradox in that, once you >> identify an inconsistency very precisely, you may be able to define a new >> language that eliminates it. ... which brings us beyond the (mere) points of >> higher order logics and iterative constructions, to the core idea of >> context-sensitive construction. There is no Grand Unifying Anything except >> the imperative to approach Grand Unified Things. >> >> And this targets Patrick's argument against the idealists (e.g. libertarians >> and marxists). The only reliable ideal is the creation and commitment to >> ideals. Each particular ideal is (will be) eventually destroyed. But for >> whatever reason, we seem to always create and commit ourselves to ideals. >> Old people tend to surrender over time and build huge hairballs of bandaged >> ideals all glued together with spit and bailing wire. Any serious >> conversation with an old person is an attempt to navigate the topology of >> their iteratively constructed, stigmergic, hairball of broken ideals ... and >> if that old person is open-minded, such conversations lead to new kinks and >> tortuous folds ... which is why old people make the best story tellers. >> >> But I can't help wondering why music is dominated by the young. [sigh] >> >> -- >> -- >> ⊥ glen ⊥ >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
