line break

D

dorayme

"Jonathan N. Little said:
Ah, nope! I'm the kinda guy that is always looking forward! It's those
10-years-older Denise Hoppers that live in the "now"

The future as with many other things I guess: those of us who
have less of something, value it more.
 
B

Blinky the Shark

Ben said:
Ben said:
Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote: [...]
There are exceptions to every rule. <g>

The exception to that rule is that some rules have no exceptions. :)

Actually, this is quite an interesting idea, as in paradoxical
(as in it makes the head hurt thinking about it).

It's a good one. I think it's called a Goedel sentence.

Anyone in here ever read Doug Hofstadter's "G?del, Escher, Bach: An
Eternal Golden Braid"? It's what got me into computers/computing as a
hobby, way back. And what actually got me thinking, again, after I'd
been out of college for a while. More than when I'd been *in* college,
come to think of it.

No but it sounds interesting. Thanks for the links, that Gary Felder
site is very good.

I hope you find time to check it out. It's an amazing read. It led me
to two other of Hofstadter's books, one, IIRC, perhaps co-authored by
Roger Penrose. Or perhaps Hofstadter just drew on Penrose a lot and
that led me to him.

<leaves in the GEB link as bait for others> :)
 
D

dorayme

Blinky the Shark said:
Ben said:
Ben C wrote:
Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote: [...]
There are exceptions to every rule. <g>

The exception to that rule is that some rules have no exceptions. :)

Actually, this is quite an interesting idea, as in paradoxical
(as in it makes the head hurt thinking about it).

It's a good one. I think it's called a Goedel sentence.

Well, it may be best to just think the matter through. If you
start looking at Goedel and Penrose, you will get way confused
(Goedal is good but Penrose gets out of his depth as he moves
from his special field).

'Don't tell a lie' is a rule. It is generally considered a good
one but it is also recognised there are acceptable exceptions. As
with all rules, was BTS's point. BtheS's intervention is less
clear though interesting, he claims some rules have no
exceptions? But what does this really mean? What would be an
example? A rule like 'Don't tell a lie' might be considered by
some to be so good a rule that it is never to be gainsaid by any
consideration whatsoever. So any bloke who thought this could put
up this as an example. But so what? That is just some bloke
playing taliban (women are by nature more practical and
compassionate and context sensitive).

Let's suppose BtheS is correct in thinking that there are
exceptions to every rule. Never mind any examples. That just
simply makes what BTS said false. Maybe _nearly_ every rule has
exceptions, maybe just a _very few_ are exceptionless. Maybe both
BTS and BtheS have points.

But all this will get nowhere until the goodness of a rule is
understood to be the truth of some clear statement or set of
statements. Perhaps, you see, it is not really rules that are the
puzzle in all of this, but rather something else, something that
admits of truth and falsity (unlike a rule).
 

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