XPost: comp.theory   
   From: tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk   
      
   On 11/02/2026 21:53, Alan Mackenzie wrote:   
   > Mathematicians have proven that many decision problems can not be   
   > answered, all the nonsense about "idiosyncrasies of self-referential   
   > logic" notwithstanding.   
      
      
   It's not at all clear to me that those unanswerables are properly   
   classified as "decision problem" unless one uses an auto-explication (my   
   term for when a term is both an explicatum and explicandum of an   
   explication). Carnap's definition of explication excludes such an act   
   (though I don't know if he'd picked up the bad habit of using "decision   
   problem" as an explicatum).   
      
   I think Carnap would have admitted "L-decision problem" as an explicatum   
   of the explicandum "decision problem". The nonsense act of calling   
   pathologically self-referential problems as "L-decision problems" would   
   be obvious because one does not have a problem of choosing between only   
   classifications "true" and "false" when one has merely been fooled into   
   thinking those are candidates without a whole heap of others beside.   
      
   I hereby indulge myself with some old-timey assertive logistic   
   philosophy, you might call it a strawman, something to ponder and burn down:   
      
   We can understand the fallacy by making explicit the implicit false   
   assumption: "the sentence after the conjunctive connector following can   
   be assigned no valuation but 'true' or 'false' AND blah-blah". That is   
   the cultural synergy covertly induced in the ponderer by a poetic form   
   of expression ("proposition" the explicatum, not the explicandum, it's   
   another auto-explication) but it's not /well/ formalised in that it's a   
   mess of massive description and wonderment. I think usage of AND gives   
   us falsity for pathologically self-referential 'blah-blah' if we have   
   the right type-system but other connectives give us other, non-truth,   
   classifications. A connective that means the implication of neither   
   truth nor falsity is also available. Of course, the ponderer has the   
   inducement in the form of a volition to be disobedient and choose to   
   react in a variety of unassertive ways.   
      
      
   > A proof is a proof.   
      
   Tautology.   
      
   --   
   Tristan Wibberley   
      
   The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except   
   citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,   
   of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it   
   verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to   
   promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation   
   of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general   
   superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train   
   any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that   
   will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)