Forever Undecided: A Puzzle Guide to Godel - Softcover

Smullyan, Raymond M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192821962 ISBN 13: 9780192821966

Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr, 1988

Synopsis

This book provides an introduction to Kurt Godel's theorems through a collection of puzzles interspersed with an account of symbolic logic. Godel's argument has been transferred from the formal domain of mathematical systems in an attempt to make its essential ideas more accessible to the general reader. The primary emphasis is on belief systems and how they are related to systems of mathematics. This leads to the subject of possible world semantics which plays a role in computer science and artificial intelligence.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In these mathematical and logic puzzles, truth-telling knights battle lying knaves; a philosopher-logician named George falls in love with Oona, flighty bird-girl of the South Pacific; Inspector Craig and timid, conceited or modest reasoners match wits. Using such fictional enticements, the author of What Is the Name of This Book? and To Mock a Mockingbird steers us through the logical thickets of Kurt Godel's famous Incompleteness Theorem, which holds that mathematical systems can never prove their own consistency. Readers who make it halfway through this book will learn more symbolic logic than a college freshman stuffed with "new math." In the second half, the deeper waters of modal logic are navigated. This field, which dates back to Aristotle, impinges on current debates in computer science and artificial intelligence. Smullyan's gift is to make complex ideas both accessible and enjoyable to the persevering reader.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Godel's incompleteness theorem is generally considered to have shown that formal number systems cannot prove their own consistency. Through a series of problems and solutions ("On the Island of Knights and Knaves, knights always make true statements and knaves always make false statements, and every inhabitant is either a knight or a knave . . . ") that are converted to symbolic logic, Smullyan progresses from an elementary to an advanced consideration of Godel's theorem. Apart from a few remarks at book's end, Smullyan makes no attempt to show what bearing Godel's results might have on more general, particularly epistemological, problems. Serious students of logic, computer theory, and artificial intelligence should find this entertaining and instructive, but it cannot be recommended for a larger audience. Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington,
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0192821962
• ISBN 13: 9780192821966
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272