Related papers: Paradoxes of Randomness
This article discusses what can be proved about the foundations of mathematics using the notions of algorithm and information. The first part is retrospective, and presents a beautiful antique, Godel's proof, the first modern incompleteness…
It appears paradoxical that science is producing outstanding new results and theories at a rapid rate at the same time that researchers are identifying serious problems in the practice of science that cause many reports to be irreproducible…
A fundamental question is whether Turing machines can model all reasoning processes. We introduce an existence principle stating that the perception of the physical existence of any Turing program can serve as a physical causation for the…
Transcript of G.J. Chaitin's 2 March 2000 Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture. The notion of randomness is taken from physics and applied to pure mathematics in order to shed light on the…
We identify a choiceless variation of the box game paradox, in which players predict unknown real numbers with near-perfect accuracy despite lacking any useful information. We also verify that choice is necessary in the solution of the…
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…
We argue that whether the universe is infinite or finite is less crucial than usually supposed. Paradoxes of repeating behaviour in the infinite, or eternal inflationary, universe can be alleviated by a realistic definition of differing…
In Hempel's paradox of the ravens, seeing a red pencil is considered as supporting evidence that all ravens are black. Also known as the Paradox of Confirmation, the paradox and its many resolutions indicate that we cannot underestimate the…
Some common fallacies about fundamental themes of Logic are exposed: the First and Second incompleteness Theorem interpretations, Chaitin's various superficialities and the usual classification of the axiomatic Theories in function of its…
In this article, some classical paradoxes of infinity such as Galileo's paradox, Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel, Thomson's lamp paradox, and the rectangle paradox of Torricelli are considered. In addition, three paradoxes regarding…
A formal axiomatic mathematical framework for Boolos' Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever is presented and two theorems about its solvability are proved. By strictly following Boolos' instructions (in particular, the requirement that all gods are…
Standard interpretations of Goedel's "undecidable" proposition, [(Ax)R(x)], argue that, although [~(Ax)R(x)] is PA-provable if [(Ax)R(x)] is PA-provable, we may not conclude from this that [~(Ax)R(x)] is PA-provable. We show that such…
There have been many theories about the paradoxes of numbers, but this is far and away more paradoxical than most. In this paper we will present the Zoli Numbers which have some innovative characteristics. The basic concept of these numbers…
We report an inconsistency found in probability theory (also referred to as measure-theoretic probability). For probability measures induced by real-valued random variables, we deduce an "equality" such that one side of the "equality" is a…
We introduce some early considerations of physical and mathematical impossibility as preludes to the Goedel incompleteness theorems. We consider some informal aspects of these theorems and their underlying assumptions and discuss some the…
Goedel Incompleteness Theorem leaves open a way around it, vaguely perceived for a long time but not clearly identified. (Thus, Goedel believed informal arguments can answer any math question.) Closing this loophole does not seem obvious…
Axiomatizing mathematical structures and theories is an objective of Mathematical Logic. Some axiomatic systems are nowadays mere definitions, such as the axioms of Group Theory; but some systems are much deeper, such as the axioms of…
The process of doing Science in condition of uncertainty is illustrated with a toy experiment in which the inferential and the forecasting aspects are both present. The fundamental aspects of probabilistic reasoning, also relevant in real…
Transfinite set theory including the axiom of choice supplies the following basic theorems: (1) Mappings between infinite sets can always be completed, such that at least one of the sets is exhausted. (2) The real numbers can be well…
This paper examines the application of Tarski's Undefinability Theorem to first-order arithmetic. The generally accepted view is that for this case the Theorem establishes that arithmetic truth is not arithmetic. A careful examination of…