[Corpora-List] PS:minimal changes in a paragraph (based on a corpus it appeared) ... (2nd attempt (after first one was deleted))

[Angus Grieve-Smith]

On 8/9/2011 12:19 PM, Patrick Juola wrote:
> And an even bigger mistake that scientists can make is to 
> misunderstand what they read and then misapply it in a completely 
> inappropriate way in a totally wrong discipline.

     I don't think it's a bigger mistake, I don't think I misunderstood, 
and I don't think I applied the results inappropriately.  But some of 
the best scientific findings have resulted from applying things to a 
"totally wrong" discipline.

> Godel showed that a formal system capable of doing arithmetic 
> perfectly cannot be both complete and consistent.
     Gödel showed that a formal system cannot be both complete and 
consistent.  His results were not specific to arithmetic.

>  Since human beings are not formal systems, this is of limited 
> application.   In particular, we know for independent reasons that a) 
> humans can't do arithmetic perfectly, b) humans aren't consistent, and 
> c) humans aren't "complete" (as they have limitations like finite 
> attention spans and finite lifetimes).

     You know that, and I know that.  But linguistics and cognitive 
science are full of people who claim that human beings contain complete, 
consistent formal systems.

-- 
				-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
				grvsmth at panix.com


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