Self-reference.

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3 total messages Started by Bill Taylor Thu, 28 Jan 1993 01:11

#623

Author: Bill Taylor
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 01:11

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There is quite an amusing article on self-reference in the latest 
Math Intelligencer, (Vol 14, #4, 1992).  It is a paper by Dosen entitled
"One more reference on self-reference", which very appropriately has only one
paper mentioned in the references: itself !!

There was one passage that caught my eye, and it may ring loud bells with others
as well:

 If a typical working mathematician shows an interest in this phenomenon, it is
 more on the recreational side, in a Gardner mood.
 .....one can hardly expect to learn much. One just gets the thrill of 
 something amusing, but also whimsical, confused, and a little bit unnerving -
 intriguing but not worth pursuing seriously - something basically hollow.
 One abandons such papers without enlightenment, without any sense of achievement.

How very true !

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              Bill Taylor              wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz
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                       Kleeneness is next to Godelness.
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Re: Self-reference.

#632

Author: Randall Holmes
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 14:25

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In article <TORKEL.93Jan28035348@anhur.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>In article <C1JHyx.C96@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz 
>(Bill Taylor) writes:
>
>  [Quoting an article on self-reference]
>
> >.....one can hardly expect to learn much. One just gets the thrill of 
> >something amusing, but also whimsical, confused, and a little bit unnerving -
> >intriguing but not worth pursuing seriously - something basically
hollow.

How true!  Who could possibly be interested in the Cantor theorem, the
insolubility of the halting problem, and other such whimsical results!

>
>  This kind of comment demonstrates the amazing extent to which the
>Hofstadter-style mystification of self-reference has taken root even
>among mathematicians. They think to find unnerving whimsy in simple
>mathematics...

Simple?!?

>



-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu

Re: Self-reference.

#630

Author: Torkel Franzen
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 16:50

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In article <1993Jan28.142508.15763@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu 
(Randall Holmes) writes:

   >Simple?!?

  Actually I canceled my article after looking at the article Bill quoted. 
My grumbling was misplaced, since that quote was just another self-reference!
The author was well aware of the mathematical uses of self-reference (in
the diagonal lemma etc).

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