From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2006-10-09T04:22:13+09:00
Subject: Re: nil being empty

------=_Part_152510_12402377.1160335330418
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

On 10/8/06, John W. Kennedy <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:
> > On Sun, 8 Oct 2006, Robert Dober wrote:
> >
> >> On 10/8/06, Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I do agree that making nil return true for #empty? is the
> >>> wrong solution.
> >>
> >>
> >> Then by simple logic, the right solution will be to have it return
> false
> >
> > na, read up on godel - every boolean language/situation also has a clas=
s
> of
> > maybe/unknowable/paradox.  this falls there.
>
> Not so. A system has to reach a certain level of complexity for G=F6del t=
o
> kick in. Arithmetic reaches that level. Boolean algebra does not.


I only made a joke, apparently a very bad one :-(,
Ara however  was  not  talking about  Boolean Algreba but about  "Natural
Language talking about Boolean Algebra"  and  G=F6del's theorem does apply =
of
course,  as a matter of fact there are  paradoxa well 20 times as old as
G=F6del's theorem talking about this.
E.g. the famous abou the Cretan saying that all Cretan lie all the time, a
very nice analogy to Russel's paradoxon of finite and infinite sets.
Well what a joke ;)
Robert



--
> John W. Kennedy
> "The blind rulers of Logres
> Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
>    -- Charles Williams.  "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
>
>


--=20
Deux choses sont infinies : l'univers et la b=EAtise humaine ; en ce qui
concerne l'univers, je n'en ai pas acquis la certitude absolue.

- Albert Einstein

------=_Part_152510_12402377.1160335330418--