logoalt Hacker News

marojejianlast Monday at 10:33 PM1 replyview on HN

Interesting points in here.

e.g. that Godel didn't think this scrapped Hilbert's project totally:

>Gödel believed that it was possible to redefine what we mean by a formal mathematical framework, or allow for alternative frameworks. He often discussed an infinite sequence of acceptable logical systems, each more powerful than the last. Every well-formulated mathematical question might be answerable within one of them.


Replies

lioeterslast Tuesday at 10:20 AM

That part you quoted was interesting to me too. I remember once re-reading the incompleteness theorems - where it talks about a "finite set of axioms", it seemed there may be a loophole if we can imagine a theoretically infinite set of axioms, as a way to approach completeness.

Overall I really enjoyed this article, short interviews with mathematicians and philosophers on a topic I've often thought about.

show 2 replies