|Godel>+|Rand>
jos...@my-deja.com
The Austrian logician Kurt Godel, a refugee from the Nazis, was an
unworldly man who owed much to his friends. After many years of
living in this [U.S.] country he was persuaded to apply for
citizenship. But once Godel began reading the American
Constitution, he discovered a logical loophole that cast him into
deep distress. Von Neumann had to be called in to convince him
that if you looked at things the right way there would be no
inconsistency.
Albert Einstein and the game theorist Oskar Morgenstern went to
chaperone Godel to the final hearing on his citizenship request.
The judge was delighted to get to talk with Einstein, and they
chatted at length about recent events in Nazi Germany. Finally,
almost as an afterthought, the judge turned to Godel and said,
"But of course from your reading of the Constitution you now know
that nothing like that could happen here."
"As a matter of fact, " Godel began - but then Morgenstern nudged
him with his elbow, so Godel got his citizenship after all.
-excerpted from "Absolute Zero Gravity" by Devine and Cohen
-J
http://carpediem.within.net
"A proof is something that convinces somebody." - mathematician
Ivan Niven
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Stephen Speicher
> I think AR would have appreciated this anecdote:
>
> The Austrian logician Kurt Godel, a refugee from the Nazis, was an
> unworldly man who owed much to his friends. After many years of
> living in this [U.S.] country he was persuaded to apply for
> citizenship. But once Godel began reading the American
> Constitution, he discovered a logical loophole that cast him into
> deep distress. Von Neumann had to be called in to convince him
> that if you looked at things the right way there would be no
> inconsistency.
> Albert Einstein and the game theorist Oskar Morgenstern went to
> chaperone Godel to the final hearing on his citizenship request.
> The judge was delighted to get to talk with Einstein, and they
> chatted at length about recent events in Nazi Germany. Finally,
> almost as an afterthought, the judge turned to Godel and said,
> "But of course from your reading of the Constitution you now know
> that nothing like that could happen here."
> "As a matter of fact, " Godel began - but then Morgenstern nudged
> him with his elbow, so Godel got his citizenship after all.
>
> -excerpted from "Absolute Zero Gravity" by Devine and Cohen
>
The above contains as much inaccuracy and misunderstanding,
historically, as the pseudo-intellectuals here have demonstrated
in regard to Goedel's work.
To call Goedel a "refugee from the Nazis" is obscene. A refugee
does not preface his signature with the words "Heil Hitler",
which Goedel did in a published 1936 letter. Facing imminent
induction into the Nazi military service in 1939, Goedel sought a
visa to get to Princeton, glad that the Nazis had overlooked his
episodes of mental instability. It is a long, contorted story as
to his eventual arrival back in the U.S., but he certainly was
not "persuaded to apply for citizenship." In fact, when Goedel
arrived at San Francisco, he stated that he had no intention of
applying for citizenship, and after receiving an extended leave
then turned around and immediately applied for naturalization in
Dec. 1940, which is what he had intended. It is simply not true
that "After many years of living in this [U.S.] country he was
persuaded to apply for citizenship."
The whole story above, with Einstein and Morgenstern is all
distorted, and conflates two entirely different circumstances. On
Dec. 5th, 1947, Goedel had his citizenship hearing, with
Morgenstern and Einstein as his two witnesses, and Morgenstern as
his chauffer, since Goedel never drove a car in America. It is
true that Goedel thought he had found an inconsistency in the
Constitution, and both Einstein and Morgenstern sought to
distract Goedel from that at the hearing. The judge, Phillip
Forman, happened to be the same judge who administered Einstein's
oath years before, and Forman ushered the trio into his chambers.
Goedel was forgotten in the conversation, but eventually the
judge asked "Do you think a dictatorship like that in Germany
could ever arise in the United States?" When Goedel started to
spout off, Forman quickly said "You needn't go into that", and
continued on with other things. It was not Morgenstern who
quelched Goedel's response.
Make no mistake about Goedel, he was withdrawn, depressed, and
suffered from episodes of hypochondria and paranoia. Goedel had
the radiator and ice box in his apartment removed because he
thought they were giving off a poison gas. His colleagues at
Princeton contacted Goedel's physician to talk about his "case",
to ask if it was "all right for him to go ahead with his work",
and "especially to know whether you consider that there is any
danger of his malady taking a violent form which might involve
him doing injury either to himself or to others". Goedel
believed in ghosts--he was a mental basketcase, well suited as
a hero of the modern pseudo-intellectuals.
Stephen
s...@compbio.caltech.edu
Save the photons--don't look!
Printed using 100% recycled electrons.
-------------------------------------
anth...@hotmail.com
100...@mattcom.speicher.com>,
Stephen Speicher <s...@speicher.com> wrote:
> >
> > -excerpted from "Absolute Zero Gravity" by Devine and Cohen
> >
>
> The above contains as much inaccuracy and misunderstanding,
> historically, as the pseudo-intellectuals here have demonstrated
> in regard to Goedel's work.
And _you_ have demonstrated an understanding of his work and what
it means? The remarks you have made demonstrate very little
understanding.
>
> To call Goedel a "refugee from the Nazis" is obscene....[snip] Goedel
> believed in ghosts--he was a mental basketcase, well suited as
> a hero of the modern pseudo-intellectuals.
Complete idiocy. What does this have to do with his work?
--
Wrathbone
Stephen Grossman
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.05.9907151428110.2275-
> 100...@mattcom.speicher.com>,
> Stephen Speicher <s...@speicher.com> wrote:
> > To call Goedel a "refugee from the Nazis" is obscene....[snip] Goedel
> > believed in ghosts--he was a mental basketcase, well suited as
> > a hero of the modern pseudo-intellectuals.
>
> Complete idiocy. What does this have to do with his work?
his work was a projection of his subjectivity. Read Madness and Modernism.
________________________________________________
Reason is man's basic means of survival. AYN RAND
This here thing comes from this here seed. ARISTOTLE
I reckon so! JOANN SVENDSEN
------------------------------------------------------
Tracking Marxist dialectical revolution: ZigZag
Radically systematic radical metaphysics: Existence 2
http://home.att.net/~sdgross
-------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman Fairhaven, MA, USA sdg...@att.net
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
> The Austrian logician Kurt Godel, a refugee from the Nazis, was an
> unworldly man who owed much to his friends. After many years of
> living in this [U.S.] country he was persuaded to apply for
> citizenship. But once Godel began reading the American
> Constitution, he discovered a logical loophole that cast him into
> deep distress.
What was the loophole?
-- M. Ruff
X
X
X
X
Samantha Atkins
>
> The above contains as much inaccuracy and misunderstanding,
> historically, as the pseudo-intellectuals here have demonstrated
> in regard to Goedel's work.
>
I would watch it calling people psuedo-intellectuals without any
evidence offered. That is in the meaningless smear category. In
short it is what one might expect of a psuedo-intellectual.
- samantha
Robert F. Benz
can anyone tell me whether Samantha's Atkin's post is an example of
recursion, or of self-disconfirming self-reference?
I am definitely going straight to the library to start studying logic in
earnest. It looks like a very rich and deep subject.
Thanks to all you logicians out there.
(Unless Runnacles is right and you're not "Out There" but just one big
brain in a vat, or computer program)
Samantha Atkins wrote in message <3791912D...@thelove.org>...
jos...@my-deja.com
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold <Storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> What was the loophole?
>
> -- M. Ruff
I don't know. That's all the book had to say on the matter. It is a
science joke book that contains amusing anecdotes and mine is quite
well-worn.
-J
http://carpediem.within.net
Stephen Grossman
<robert...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> I am definitely going straight to the library to start studying logic in
> earnest.
Stay away from modern "logic." Read Aristotle or maybe a Catholic logic
text from decades ago.
Bert Clanton
<sdgross-2207...@202.cambridge-23-24rs.ma.dial-access.att.net>,
Stephen Grossman <sdg...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> Stay away from modern "logic." Read Aristotle or maybe a Catholic logic
> text from decades ago.
Right!
And while you're at it, you might delve into a nice text in Ptolemaic
astronomy or one on Aristotelian biology or one on the phlogiston theory
of heat.
Best wishes,
Bert.
Matthew Cline
<sdg...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>In article <7msfll$hqo$1...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>, "Robert F. Benz"
><robert...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> I am definitely going straight to the library to start studying logic in
>> earnest.
If you're interested in recursion, self reference, and/or Godel's
theorems, you might want to take a look at "Godel, Escher, Bach: an
Eternal Golden Braid", by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Very interesting
stuff, and by the time you're about 60% done with the book, you'll
have a pretty good understanding of Godel's theorems.
Robert J. Kolker
Bert Clanton wrote:
>
> Right!
>
> And while you're at it, you might delve into a nice text in Ptolemaic
> astronomy or one on Aristotelian biology or one on the phlogiston theory
> of heat.
>
And while you are at it, do not forget caloric, luminiferous aether,
and vital essence.
Bob Kolker
Robert F. Benz
Actually, I've been reading a really fantastic book by Wang, a close
associate &friend of Godel's. This book quotes both Godel's writings and
philosophical discussions. Evidently Godel called himself a "Platonist" and
"Objectist" at different times, not because he had a fully developed
Platonist epistemology, but because he thoroughly rejected Wittgenstein, the
Logical Positivists, and also Kant. (He almost starts to sound like an
Objectivist hero, doesn't he?). He felt that the mind was grasping
objective truth when it grasped mathematical or logical principles, but he
hadn't discovered the philosophical formulation that he knew was there, but
could never quite articulate.
Evidently, he hesitated to publish his major work against Carnap,
because he knew what mathematics was NOT (not an arbitrary verbal game like
Wittgenstein said, not a concrete-bound empirical observation like the
positivists wanted, nor a Kantian category), but he wasn't really prepared
to say what logical/mathematical objective truth actually was,
philosophically. So, he was probably closer to "Objectivist" in his
epistemology than any other logician since Aristotle. True, his idea of
objectivism contained a lot of Platonism. But he was still searching, and
much in this book by Wang (From Godel to Philosophy) will sound familiar to
Objectivists.
So, let us not bash Godel, but praise him!
Regards, -Bob Benz
Matthew Cline wrote in message <3798b452....@news.pacbell.net>...
Phil Oliver
> to say what logical/mathematical objective truth actually was,
> philosophically. So, he was probably closer to "Objectivist" in his
> epistemology than any other logician since Aristotle. True, his idea of
> objectivism contained a lot of Platonism
What in the hell makes you think that your above description
bears ANY relationship to AR's Objectivism? Other than a very
superficial commonality in the names, there really isn't any.
Phil Oliver
Stephen Grossman
<be...@sonic.net> wrote:
> And while you're at it, you might delve into a nice text
in...Aristotelian biology
Darwin regarded him as an excellent biologist, 2400 yrs later! But if
youre a mechanist, ie, if you cant think systematically about biology,
then Aristotle's system of biology will be intellectually invisible
________________________________________________
Reason is man's basic means of survival. AYN RAND