Rebuttal of Colin Leslie Deans Case Study in the Meaninglessness of All Views

3/27/12 11:13 AM

Rebuttal of Colin Leslie Deans Case Study in the Meaninglessness of All Views

The paper by Colin Leslie Dean is subtitled "Case Study in the Meaninglessness of All Views, by Colin Leslie Dean". I must say the irony of this phrase supplied some much-needed comic relief after I had endured the first 15 pages and skimmed the remainder of this screed. Even ignoring the atrocious grammar and appalling abuse of terminology, this muddle of misinterpretation and skeptical illusion fails almost instantly, collapsing under the cumulative weight of non sequitur, metonymy, and rambling, disconnected thought. This document may be found here: http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/books/philosophy/GODEL5.pdf At the heart of Mr. Dean's generally flawed reasoning is his misunderstanding of the context in which Gdel's proof is constructed. Prior to Gdel's metamathematical (proof-theoretic) demonstration of the incompleteness of Principia Mathematica, 1925 (PM) and related systems, mathematicians and logicians had been trying unsuccessfully for nearly a decade to discover a completeness theorem for systems encompassing elementary number theory. In the proof-theoretic sense used in relation to Gdel's theorems, a statement that is neither provable nor refutable within a specified deductive system is called undecidable. Deductive systems wherein undecidable propositions can be formulated are incomplete, and deductive systems wherein propositions can be formulated that are both provable and refutable are inconsistent. Gdel's First Incompleteness Theorem states that "Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for
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Rebuttal of Colin Leslie Deans Case Study in the Meaninglessness of All Views

3/27/12 11:13 AM

any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable within that theory." Gdel's Second Incompleteness Theorem states that "For any effectively generated formal theory T including basic arithmetical truths and certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent." Just prior to publication of his incompleteness results in 1931, Gdel already had proved the completeness of the First Order logical calculus; but a number-theoretic system consists of both logic plus number-theoretic axioms, so the completeness of PM and the goal of Hilbert's Programme (Die Grundlagen der Mathematik) remained open questions. Gdel proved (1) If the logic is complete, but the whole is incomplete, then the number-theoretic axioms must be incomplete; and (2) It is impossible to prove the consistency of any number-theoretic system within that system. In the context of Dean's discussion, Gdel's Incompleteness results show that any formal system obtained by combining Peano's axioms for the natural numbers with the logic of PM is incomplete, and that no consistent system so constructed can prove its own consistency. Mr. Dean devotes page after page to "proving" that Gdel uses the Axiom of Reducibility, the Axiom of Choice, and the Axiom of Infinity in his Incompleteness theorems, all the while failing to realize that a metamathematical theorem (metatheorem) is a proposition about mathematics, not about the objects of any particular mathematical theory; consequently, it is necessary to assume the consistency of a given theory's axioms in order to prove metamathematical statements about that theory. Mr. Dean could have made his paper half as tedious if he simply had bothered to read Gdel's own notes at the end of his 1931 paper entitled, "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems", wherein Gdel freely admits such use: "Whitehead and Russell (1925). Among the axioms of the system PM we include also the Axiom of Infinity (in this version there are exactly denumerably many individuals), the Axiom of Reducibility, and the Axiom of Choice (for all types)." -- Gdel, Kurt "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems" (1931); Notes (2). Notice also that despite Dean's spurious assertion to the contrary, Gdel cites the 1925 edition. Finally, Dean has misconstrued the meaning of 'true mathematical statements' within the context of Gdel's metamathematical theorems. Mr. Dean assumes it was Gdel's intention or that it was otherwise incumbent upon him to identify and to prove the absolute validity (truth) of a class of propositions within PM, but Dean has utterly misunderstood Gdel's purpose and his results. Mr. Dean complains that Gdel "cannot tell us what makes a mathematical statement true", but Gdel's Incompleteness theorems make no attempt to do this. Instead, assuming the consistency of an axiomatic system like PM, he shows without saying anything concerning validity outside that system that a proposition within that system is either provable, refutable, or undecidable using the axioms and rules of inference within
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Rebuttal of Colin Leslie Deans Case Study in the Meaninglessness of All Views

3/27/12 11:13 AM

that system. What led Gdel to his Incompleteness theorems is both fascinating and instructive. Gdel was a mathematical realist (Platonist) who regarded the axioms of set theory as obvious in that they literally "force themselves upon us as being true." During his study of Hilbert's problem to prove the consistency of Analysis by finitist means, Gdel attempted to "divide the difficulties" by proving the consistency of Number Theory using finitist means, and to then prove the consistency of Analysis by Number Theory, assuming not only the consistency but also the truth of Number Theoretic statements. According to Wang (1981): "[Gdel] represented real numbers by formulas...of number theory and found he had to use the concept of truth for sentences in number theory in order to verify the comprehension axiom for analysis. He quickly ran into the paradoxes (in particular, the Liar and Richard's) connected with truth and definability. He realized that truth in number theory cannot be defined in number theory, and therefore his plan...did not work." As a mathematical realist, Gdel already doubted the underlying premise of Hilbert's Formalism, and after discovering that truth could not be defined within number theory using finitist means, Gdel realized the existence of undecidable propositions in suitably strong systems. Thereafter, he took great pains to remove the concept of truth from his 1931 results in order to expose the flaw in the Formalist project using only methods to which the Formalist could not object. Gdel writes: "I may add that my objectivist conception of mathematics and metamathematics in general, and of transfinite reasoning in particular, was fundamental also to my work in logic. How indeed could one think of expressing metamathematics in the mathematical systems themselves, if the latter are considered to consist of meaningless symbols which acquire some substitute of meaning only through metamathematics...It should be noted that the heuristic principle of my construction of undecidable number theoretical propositions in the formal systems of mathematics is the highly transfinite concept of 'objective mathematical truth' as opposed to that of demonstrability..." Wang (1974) In an unpublished letter to a graduate student, Gdel writes: "However, in consequence of the philosophical prejudices of our times, 1. nobody was looking for a relative consistency proof because [it] was considered that a consistency proof must be finitary in order to make sense, 2. a concept of objective mathematical truth as opposed to demonstrability was viewed with greatest suspicion and widely rejected as meaningless." Clearly, despite Gdel's ontological commitment to mathematical truth, he justifiably feared rejection by the foundationalist establishment dominated by Hilbert's perspective of any results that assumed this concept. In so doing, he was led to a result even he did not anticipate - his second Incompleteness theorem -- which established that no sufficiently
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Rebuttal of Colin Leslie Deans Case Study in the Meaninglessness of All Views

3/27/12 11:13 AM

anticipate - his second Incompleteness theorem -- which established that no sufficiently strong formal system can demonstrate its own consistency. Ill-conceived, poorly researched, and recklessly constructed papers, like that of Colin Lesile Dean, are a waste of everyone's time and do nothing to further understanding of foundations. Sources: Gdel, Kurt "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I" Jean van Heijenoort (trans.), From Frege to Gdel: A Sourcebook in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931 (Harvard 1931) Feferman, Solomon "Kurt Gdel: Conviction and Caution" 7th International Congress on Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science ( Salzburg 1983) Maddy, Penelope "Realism in Mathematics" (Clarendon-Oxford 1992) Balaguer, Mark "Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics" (Oxford 1998) Hellman, Geoffrey "Mathematics Without Numbers" (Clarendon-Oxford 1989) Steven Kleene "The Work of Kurt Godel" The Journal of Symbolic Logic vol 41 no 4 (1978) Enderton, Herbert A Mathematical Introduction to Logic (Academic Press 1972) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdel%27s_incompleteness_theorems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_types http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamathematics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finitist
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