Riff,
-perfectly possible to be in over your head even if you are "educated and
stuff". And quite necessary to, for IMO. By the way, I absolutely HATE
formal logic with a real passion, so I think I'll go to Hofstdater too in
the hope of understanding what I just said to you on Godel. By the way -
you mention heisenberg: you do know that there's an interesting Prisig essay
on the philosophical aspects of Quantum Mechanics at the moq.org?
All the best,
Elephant, P.
> From: dkm <dkmnow@tidepool.com>
> Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 23:24:59 -0800
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MD Inconsistency, Incompleteness and MetaMemeMapping.
>
> PzEph,
>
> I must be brief. I have two days to finish prep for a 10 min presentation
> to my Ethics class on the MOQ and how it handles
> "moral" dillemmas. Because of this, your observation regarding
> politicians ("R/R Proof") was very important to me as I must be
> prepared for just such questions. My conclusion is similar:
> Evolution is utterly aloof to our evaluations; Quality is, as
> ROG puts it, a "Positive Sum" proposition (as I have only had
> time to glance at his work, I may well be missing his point
> entirely); and with these in mind, our "ethical" evaluations
> are of strictly local relevance in space and time, as we can
> never hope to know the DQ of the ultimate "end result" if there
> is such a thing...
>
> And I intend to show all this in a 10 min presentation!?
> My KINGDOM for a NUTSHELL!!!
>
> You seem cosiderably less "dim" on Godel than I am. Admittedly,
> my entire "grasp" of his Incompleteness Theorem is based on
> Hofstadter's work, to which, due to inexperience, I fear I have
> done great injustice in my attempt to illustrate.
>
> Your report:
>> On the second theorum (a corrollary), Flew gives this precis:
>> "... the consistency of a formal system of arithmetic cannot be >proved by
>> a means formalizable within that system"
>
> This is exactly what Hofstadter illustrates (I seem to recall), and he
> explores the many questions that arise with a sparkling energy and
> curiosity ("IMO") which I have found nowhere else. His many other
> interrelated explorations into science, language, music, art, ZEN,
> computers, artificial intelligence, to name a few, I find likewise
> intriguing and inspiring. Also, I must point
> out that, while he dabbles very little in metaphysics as such,
> there seems an implicit thread woven throughout his work which is
> accommodated quite effortlessly by Pirsig's MOQ.
>
> For nearly 20 years I had an extreme aversion to the idea of going
> to college. It was Hofstadter's work (primarily), plus its lack of any
> apparent conflict with my perceptions of Quality (or with the MOQ), which
> finally and uexpectedly pushed me over the
> threshold and into the academic world. Who would have thought!!!
>
> DQ: Expect the unexpected!
>
> Now back to Godel...
> Your remarks:
>> Now this observation (based on detailed formal logic, and having
>>> application to formal logic) is symultaneously the most >revolutionary
>> thing you can say, or utterly unsurprising, >depending on how you look at
>> it.
>
> Quite so. In fact, I like to think of it as BOTH, even without
> changing channels (POV)! But then, I am the babbling bipedal
> embodiment of ambiguity.
>
> ...and Murdoch:
>> Now all this is quite a different kettle of fish from the worries >you and
>> I have about whether the attempt to rationalise >everything can over-reach
>> itself.....
>>
>> Or is it?
>
> Perhaps. I read your paper on Murdoch, and without any prior knowledge of
> her work, I think I generally would agree with
> you/her, but I definitely need to take a closer look. I am wholly
> unprepared to argue any POV here--my position (whatever it is) is based
> almost entirely on "preintellectual" perceptions--but I tend
> to SUSPECT that the two kettles above are somehow very deeply
> intertwined.
>
> Now back to my(?) statement:
> "Any formal system of logic MAY be either complete OR consistent
> but NOT BOTH."
>
> I now must admit that I am completely unprepared to support this,
> as well. As I said, I had thought that I was simply paraphrasing
> from Hofstadter's "GEB" ("Godel, Escher, Bach:...", Basic Books,
> 1979.), but now I can find no such reference. If I had, I could,
> at worst, claim that supporting the statement was not my job, and
> simply point to Hofstadter (pretty BAD, I'll grant you, but such is the
> state of my skills at present.). Now I have to ask if I have been
> misrepresenting both Godel AND Hofstadter.
>
> When I offered the above "quote" to my Ethics class, albeit in a
> somewhat different context, the instructor acted as if he had been
> waiting years for a student to make such an observation. He then
> proceeded to attribute the statement to Heisenberg! Oh, well, at
> least I'm not ALONE in my confusion about this.
>
> At any rate, your questions and observations on this matter have
> helped me to see that I need to be prepared to support this idea;
> or shelve it until such time as I can support it; or discard it altogether.
> I have been quzzing people on campus in hopes of finding either
> confirmation or correction, but no one wants to touch the issue, except to
> say that it "sounds quite profound".
> This exchange has been very helpful. Thank you!
>
>
>
> Hey! You guys are SERIOUS...and EDUCATED...and stuff!
> I'M just a middle-aged PLEBE who's stumbled in way over his head!!
>
> Oh,well, all the more reason to stay in school, eh?
>
> Thanks & best wishes,
>
> Riff
> (dkm)
>
> P.S. (That's what I call "brief". It also took me hours. You can
> see how this would be a problem in academic life!)
>
>
>
>
>
>
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