Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts

08 April, 2016

Several Case Studies of Metamathematics in Everyday Life

I have no idea why I think it's a good idea to post this, but it's been on my mind lately.
Corrections, qualifications, and suggestions welcome.

Gödel's Incompleteness

  • "Are you crazy if you think you're crazy?"
  • Free will.

Chaitin's Incompleteness

Tarski's Incompleteness

  • Squabbles about the meaning of words.
  • Linguistic paradoxes (ofc)

Löb's Theorem

Fixed Point Theorem

  • Being meta. (e.g. metahumor, etc.)

The Halting Problem

  • Telling if a deadfic is really dead, maybe.
  • Free will (again)

28 January, 2016

Translating Alien Languages

Epistemic Status: Likely

Related: Three Worlds Collide

I'm learning Lojban sorta off and on, mostly off, and yesterday I was idly pondering whether the meanings of words in Lojban would be biased the words used in their English descriptions (I'm not considering this seriously, sense I doubt someone would make a conlang without knowing a few languages). It eventually lead to me thinking about languages in general, and how dictionaries create endless circularity of meaning.