[FOM] Is Godel's Theorem surprising?

[Aatu Koskensilta]

Harvey Friedman wrote:
> It would be helpful to the FOM readership for you to give us a 
> reference to
> this paper by Putnam. I have serious doubts about the claims you are
> suggesting.
>   
Charles is probably referring to Putnam's Nonstandard Models and 
Kripke's Proof of the Gödel Theorem, Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 41 
(2000), no. 1, 53-58. I doubt the independent sentence constructed by 
Putnam's method would be considered "mathematical" by many. Putnam's 
claim is rather that the proof would be intelligible to "a 19th century 
mathematician" and doesn't require quite so much logical machinery as 
Gödel's proof. (The result is also weaker, since the independent 
sentence is Pi-2).

Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.koskensilta at xortec.fi)

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen"
 - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus