5 ms·
What would be a good starting point to learn more about the topics described in this article? I felt like I understood the gist, but a lot of things went over m
by chrisshroba 7y ago
What would be a good starting point to learn more about the topics described in this article? I felt like I understood the gist, but a lot of things went over my head.
- munificent 7y agoDouglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher Bach" does a very slow gradual walk through Gödel's incompleteness theorem. If you can get into his writing style, it's a good way to really "get" the points.
- chrisshroba 7y agoThanks for the recommendation! I actually just picked it up off a friend's bookshelf yesterday and it's next on my list of books to read. I appreciate your response!
- mathgenius 7y agoChaitin's "meta math" is also a good read. Less arduous than G.E.B.
- ProfHewitt 7y agoChaitin made the very good point that inferential undecidability (incompleteness) is too important a result to depend on the triviality of the existence of the proposition I'mUnprovable. Fortunately, inferential undecidability of strongly-typed theories can be proved without using the nonexistent I'mUnprovable.