From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!stanford.edu!rock!concert!sas!mozart.unx.sas.com!sasghm Tue Nov 24 10:52:31 EST 1992
Article 7685 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:7685 sci.logic:2363
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!stanford.edu!rock!concert!sas!mozart.unx.sas.com!sasghm
>From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Sender: news@unx.sas.com (Noter of Newsworthy Events)
Message-ID: <BxwzLy.H3E@unx.sas.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 13:46:45 GMT
References: <1992Nov14.151559.13227@oracorp.com> <BxtBwx.LvH@unx.sas.com> <1992Nov18.051456.24550@u.washington.edu>
Nntp-Posting-Host: theseus.unx.sas.com
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Lines: 37


In article <1992Nov18.051456.24550@u.washington.edu>, petry@corona.math.washington.edu (David Petry) writes:
|> In article <BxtBwx.LvH@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
|> >
|> >In article <1992Nov14.151559.13227@oracorp.com>, daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
|> >
|> >|> 
|> >|>     This sentence is false.
|> >|> 
|> >|> refers to an unrestricted notion of falsity, and is therefore
|> >|> meaningless. We can replace "false" by a restricted notion of falsity
|> >
|> >This sort of thing has been tried before.  One problem is that the displayed
|> >sentence is *not* meaningless in any normal sense of this term.  We
|> >know perfectly well what it means -- and that's the problem.
|> 
|> Well, we think we know perfectly well what it (the paradoxical sentence)
|> means, but we humans use non-monotonic logic.  That is, we are willing to 
|> reject our previous conclusions in light of new knowledge.
|> 
|> For example,  if you found out that I had just written down the sentence
|> "2+2 = 5" and was pointing to it while I exclaimed "This sentence is false",
|> you would quickly change your belief about the meaning of that exclamation.
|> 
|> I've always felt that that observation is crucial to the understanding of
|> the so-called paradoxes.

Really?  How?  What you point to is that the meaning of a sentence is
dependent upon context.  My claim remains that given the original
context of the example (in which the subject of the sentence refers
to the sentence itself), we know what the sentence means.  The fact
that the sentence *could* mean something else in *another* context
hardly allows us to escape the paradox.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm


