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Wittgenstein was certainly interesting, but he thought Godel was wrong, precisely because Godel showed something interesting about logic itself: http://en.wiki

Wittgenstein was certainly interesting, but he thought Godel was wrong, precisely because Godel showed something interesting about logic itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems#Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the... Paul is obviously right in criticizing the gaseous generalizations, nonsensical pretentiousness and word games that much of the western (particularly, the german) philosophical tradition fell into after the reformation. But I also agree with the philosphical hacker that he is overstating the case that word-confusion is the primary cause of conflict in philosophical disagreement, and I think Godel showed why this is compatible with an apparently deterministic and logical universe. As near as my uneducated mind can tell, Godel is the most important philosopher since Aristotle: he proved something practical, dramatic and unintuitive about the world, using only words. In as much as I understand it, it makes me laugh hysterically.

Balgair 12y ago
"We can do philosophy better if we filter out thoughts that don’t meet a usefulness criterion." Yep, as soon as I read that, I knew someone on HN would point to Godel somewhere in the comments. I'll agree with you as well on Godel and his importance. His theorem is easily one of the most important things to come out of the 20th century. I'd go: penicillin, atomic bomb, better farming tech and chemistry, Godel. I've not got the chops for the actual proof, but the many 'for the layman's' books Ive read on it just point out how incredibly important it is. From AI research to Turing's tape to the nature of reality itself, the proof is just astounding. To put him up on Aristotle's level is obvious even to a math layman like me. Likely because of the difficulty of the proof, it is not very well known, and that is a shame. I'd love a torn-down proof easy enough for a high schooler to understand. The best I've found is: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-explain-godels-incompleteness-theorems-in-layman-terms https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-...
- peterashford 12y ago
  I have very often seen people criticise Philosophy from a point of ignorance and then follow up by espousing their own very bad philosophy. It's kinda like criticising a Mathematical proof without understanding Math. You can do it, but you're highly likely to be off the mark. It's not that Philosophy doesn't have areas worthy of criticism. I personally believe that the best reason to study metaphysics is to learn why metaphysics is useless. Ironically, understanding why it's useless is actually quite useful :o)

Balgair 12y ago

"We can do philosophy better if we filter out thoughts that don’t meet a usefulness criterion." Yep, as soon as I read that, I knew someone on HN would point to Godel somewhere in the comments. I'll agree with you as well on Godel and his importance. His theorem is easily one of the most important things to come out of the 20th century. I'd go: penicillin, atomic bomb, better farming tech and chemistry, Godel. I've not got the chops for the actual proof, but the many 'for the layman's' books Ive read on it just point out how incredibly important it is. From AI research to Turing's tape to the nature of reality itself, the proof is just astounding. To put him up on Aristotle's level is obvious even to a math layman like me. Likely because of the difficulty of the proof, it is not very well known, and that is a shame. I'd love a torn-down proof easy enough for a high schooler to understand. The best I've found is: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-explain-godels-incompleteness-theorems-in-layman-terms https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-...

peterashford 12y ago
I have very often seen people criticise Philosophy from a point of ignorance and then follow up by espousing their own very bad philosophy. It's kinda like criticising a Mathematical proof without understanding Math. You can do it, but you're highly likely to be off the mark. It's not that Philosophy doesn't have areas worthy of criticism. I personally believe that the best reason to study metaphysics is to learn why metaphysics is useless. Ironically, understanding why it's useless is actually quite useful :o)