4 ms·

I don't know anything about Hewitt or his stance, but I don't feel like this adds a whole lot to the conversation. I mean I can tell that you're sure that he's

by alecst 5y ago

I don't know anything about Hewitt or his stance, but I don't feel like this adds a whole lot to the conversation. I mean I can tell that you're sure that he's wrong, but why should the strength of your belief convince me? It would be helpful if you added some links or some explanation, or just anything beyond what you've written there.

kaba0 5y ago
It’s similar to claiming someone made a perpetuum mobile — extraordinary claims going against basically every mathematician/computer scientist since Gödel require extraordinary evidence. And the result is quasi always that the one claiming, looked over some small but crucial detail.
- ProfHewitt 5y ago
  Veritasium, et. al. overlooked the crucial aspect that orders on propositions play in maintaining the consistency of foundations. Neglecting to include the order of a proposition in in its Gödel number makes it possible to mistakenly conclude that the proposition I'mUnprovable exists as a fixed point of a recursive definition. See the following for details: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3603021 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3603021
  - espadrine 5y ago
    Isn’t the order of a proposition included in its Gödel number? Each proposition is assigned to an increasing prime power, and the increasing list of primes has total order, such that swapping propositions yields a distinct Gödel number.
    - ProfHewitt 5y ago
      [Gödel 1931] encoded the characters of a proposition in its Gödel number but did not include the order of the proposition.
      - espadrine 5y ago
        Could you provide two statements with equal Gödel numbers but distinct proposition orders, and a detail of how you compute the Gödel numbers?
        ProfHewitt 5y ago
        If two propositions have the same characters, then they have the same Gödel numbers.
        espadrine 5y ago
        Could you provide two statements with equal Gödel numbers and the same characters in different orders, and a detail of how you compute the Gödel numbers?
        ProfHewitt 5y ago
        If two propositions have the same characters in the same order, then they have the same Gödel numbers. Unfortunately, Gödel number of a proposition leaves out the order of the proposition :-(
        espadrine 5y ago
        If two statements have the same characters in the same order, how are they not the same statement? And why would that make Gödel’s statement invalid in Principia Mathematica?
        ProfHewitt 5y ago
        There might be two propositions of different orders that have the same characters in the same order.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      I think what ProfHewitt means here (based on other writing I've found, as he is frustratingly low on details in these conversations) is "order" in the sense of "first order logic", "second order logic"; not in the sense of "first proposition, second proposition" etc. His claim is that the proposition "This proposition is not provable", formalized as "P equivalent to P is not provable" is not well formed in a typed logic, as "P"'s type is first-order, while "P is not provable"'s type is second-order. Therefore, his claim is that the proposition is simply not well-typed and therefore not interesting. Godel's proofs were discussing an untyped logic, but according to Hewitt that is not an accurate representation of mathematics. I don't think anyone in the space agrees with him, though, as far as I could tell from some cursory reading.
      - ProfHewitt 5y ago
        [Gödel 1931] was for a system for the foundations of mathematics with orders on propositions. The [Gödel 1931] proposition I'mUnprovable is certainly of historical interest and may perhaps be of philosophical interest. However, including the proposition I'mUnprovable in foundations makes the foundations inconsistent.
  - deadbeef57 5y ago
    I know of several computer verified proofs of the incompleteness theorem. See entry 6 of https://www.cs.ru.nl/~freek/100/ https://www.cs.ru.nl/~freek/100/ for a small catalogue. How does this relate to your objection? Are there bugs in the verifiers? Or did people verify the wrong theorem statement?
    - ProfHewitt 5y ago
      Proofs forgot to include order of proposition in its Gödel number.
      - deadbeef57 5y ago
        So you say that the computer verified proofs of the incompleteness theorem of verifying the wrong theorem? Because there can't be bugs in a computer verified proof. (Of course there can theoretically be bugs in a computer verified proof. If there are bugs in the verifier. But if 4 independent proof assistants verify a proof of a theorem, this is extremely unlikely.)
        ProfHewitt 5y ago
        A proof is only as good as definitions and axioms used in the proof. All of the computer-verified proofs of existence of [Gödel 1931] proposition I'mUnprovable left out the order of proposition in its Gödel number :-(
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
myWindoonn 5y ago
Suppose that Turing is wrong. Then Turing gave an algorithm which should defeat Rice's Theorem. Therefore, I may simply ask, to Hewitt: Could you please write up a short program in a popular Turing-complete programming language which proves or disproves Goldbach's Conjecture? It should be trivial! Of course, on actual computers, Turing's result applies, Rice's Theorem manifests, and such a program will likely run indefinitely, until we get bored and give up. The point that Hewitt has made in another thread is typical misdirection. See, it doesn't matter which order of logic we're talking about; in general, we have results for higher order logic, all the way up to Lawvere's fixed-point theorem for any Cartesian closed category. To fight this, Hewitt has to disclaim the entirety of 20th-century mathematics. (At least he's internally consistent -- he does deny modern maths!) Sad fact is that, ever since 1976 (http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/aim-353.pdf http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/aim-353.pdf) folks have recognized that Hewitt's claims about the foundations of computation are not just wrong, but flamebait. But he never had the humility to learn from his mistakes.

by alecst 5y ago

kaba0 5y ago

It’s similar to claiming someone made a perpetuum mobile — extraordinary claims going against basically every mathematician/computer scientist since Gödel require extraordinary evidence. And the result is quasi always that the one claiming, looked over some small but crucial detail.

ProfHewitt 5y ago
Veritasium, et. al. overlooked the crucial aspect that orders on propositions play in maintaining the consistency of foundations. Neglecting to include the order of a proposition in in its Gödel number makes it possible to mistakenly conclude that the proposition I'mUnprovable exists as a fixed point of a recursive definition. See the following for details: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3603021 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3603021
- espadrine 5y ago
  Isn’t the order of a proposition included in its Gödel number? Each proposition is assigned to an increasing prime power, and the increasing list of primes has total order, such that swapping propositions yields a distinct Gödel number.
  - ProfHewitt 5y ago
    [Gödel 1931] encoded the characters of a proposition in its Gödel number but did not include the order of the proposition.
    - espadrine 5y ago
      Could you provide two statements with equal Gödel numbers but distinct proposition orders, and a detail of how you compute the Gödel numbers?
      - ProfHewitt 5y ago
        If two propositions have the same characters, then they have the same Gödel numbers.
        espadrine 5y ago
        Could you provide two statements with equal Gödel numbers and the same characters in different orders, and a detail of how you compute the Gödel numbers?
        ProfHewitt 5y ago
        If two propositions have the same characters in the same order, then they have the same Gödel numbers. Unfortunately, Gödel number of a proposition leaves out the order of the proposition :-(
        espadrine 5y ago
        If two statements have the same characters in the same order, how are they not the same statement? And why would that make Gödel’s statement invalid in Principia Mathematica?
        ProfHewitt 5y ago
        There might be two propositions of different orders that have the same characters in the same order.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    I think what ProfHewitt means here (based on other writing I've found, as he is frustratingly low on details in these conversations) is "order" in the sense of "first order logic", "second order logic"; not in the sense of "first proposition, second proposition" etc. His claim is that the proposition "This proposition is not provable", formalized as "P equivalent to P is not provable" is not well formed in a typed logic, as "P"'s type is first-order, while "P is not provable"'s type is second-order. Therefore, his claim is that the proposition is simply not well-typed and therefore not interesting. Godel's proofs were discussing an untyped logic, but according to Hewitt that is not an accurate representation of mathematics. I don't think anyone in the space agrees with him, though, as far as I could tell from some cursory reading.
    - ProfHewitt 5y ago
      [Gödel 1931] was for a system for the foundations of mathematics with orders on propositions. The [Gödel 1931] proposition I'mUnprovable is certainly of historical interest and may perhaps be of philosophical interest. However, including the proposition I'mUnprovable in foundations makes the foundations inconsistent.
- deadbeef57 5y ago
  I know of several computer verified proofs of the incompleteness theorem. See entry 6 of https://www.cs.ru.nl/~freek/100/ https://www.cs.ru.nl/~freek/100/ for a small catalogue. How does this relate to your objection? Are there bugs in the verifiers? Or did people verify the wrong theorem statement?
  - ProfHewitt 5y ago
    Proofs forgot to include order of proposition in its Gödel number.
    - deadbeef57 5y ago
      So you say that the computer verified proofs of the incompleteness theorem of verifying the wrong theorem? Because there can't be bugs in a computer verified proof. (Of course there can theoretically be bugs in a computer verified proof. If there are bugs in the verifier. But if 4 independent proof assistants verify a proof of a theorem, this is extremely unlikely.)
      - ProfHewitt 5y ago
        A proof is only as good as definitions and axioms used in the proof. All of the computer-verified proofs of existence of [Gödel 1931] proposition I'mUnprovable left out the order of proposition in its Gödel number :-(

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

myWindoonn 5y ago

Suppose that Turing is wrong. Then Turing gave an algorithm which should defeat Rice's Theorem. Therefore, I may simply ask, to Hewitt: Could you please write up a short program in a popular Turing-complete programming language which proves or disproves Goldbach's Conjecture? It should be trivial! Of course, on actual computers, Turing's result applies, Rice's Theorem manifests, and such a program will likely run indefinitely, until we get bored and give up. The point that Hewitt has made in another thread is typical misdirection. See, it doesn't matter which order of logic we're talking about; in general, we have results for higher order logic, all the way up to Lawvere's fixed-point theorem for any Cartesian closed category. To fight this, Hewitt has to disclaim the entirety of 20th-century mathematics. (At least he's internally consistent -- he does deny modern maths!) Sad fact is that, ever since 1976 (http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/aim-353.pdf http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/aim-353.pdf) folks have recognized that Hewitt's claims about the foundations of computation are not just wrong, but flamebait. But he never had the humility to learn from his mistakes.