🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm enjoying reading sci.logic after a break of nearly 20 years from
thinking about such matters. [ These days I'm a statistician, an area
that I also enjoy and which shares with logic the agreeable tradition
of public argument over foundational matters. ] I thought that some
of you might be intrigued by a mystical interpretation of the
principle of reflection. I'm usually of a sceptical turn of mind, but
sometimes I go into a mystical mode to break the monotony.

I vaguely remember the principle of reflection as asserting that a
sentence of set theory true in the universe can also be satisfied in 
a proper submodel of the universe. This means that any attempt to
describe the universe by such a sentence fails.

In Ursula Le Guin's book 'City of Illusion' the main character regains 
his memory when he reads the saying

     The way that can be gone
     is not the eternal Way
				 
     The name that can be named
     is not the eternal Name

the first couplets from the 'Tao te ching' by Lao-tzu, the main Taoist 
scripture.


The parallel between this Taoist saying and the reflection principle
is rather striking. Do both express something deep about limitations
in how we can understand the universe that we inhabit ?

BTW, I set up my .sig before the recent discussion on Lewis Carroll.
-- 
Murray A. Jorgensen                       internet: maj@waikato.ac.nz
Department of Mathematics and Statistics     phone: +64-7 856 2889
University of Waikato                          fax: +64-7 838 4155
Hamilton, New Zealand      [Venue for IBC 92, 7-11 December, 1992]
______________________________________________________________________________
'Tis the song of the Jubjub! the proof is complete,
if only I've stated it thrice.'