Re: NPR, Godel, Semantic Web

-- quote --------From: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
Given the *extreme* mathematical contortions he had to go through in
establishing this, I'd be surprised if this were notable among
the obstacles facing the construction of the semantic web.

----quote -------

I don't think people will have problem impinging upon the semantic web the implications of Godel's Theorem with alarming regularity. Godel had to go through extreme contortions because he had rationality as his driving force. But people are not rational to begin with, and so those "contortions" will arise naturally in the semantic web which has more than just a small sample of people.

And then the very element that may cause the semantic web to take off will also cause it undergo those contortions - economics. It is all about creating a supply and demand in space and time - without this potential difference there is no driving force. And we are well aware that businesses may artificially create supply and demand if there is none there to begin with. Two sides will always be created and, both sides formed may not subscribe to the same principles of rationality.

So, I guess what I am driving at is that, the very nature of business will cause the semantic web to self-reflect. If the contortions that cause the system to expand don't arise naturally, then the contortions shall be caused by the people who inhabit the system to increase the economic activity, as they themselves self-reflect.

Sanjay

Subject: Re: NPR, Godel, Semantic Web

From: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>

To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>, xml-dev@lists.xml.org
>I was driving home from the hardware store yesterday when I heard a report >on NPR about Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. It concluded with a discussion >of the Semantic Web, with the interviewee making claims that the Semantic >Web would run into sizable issues with Incompleteness. To one who remembers what understanding the Goedel proof used to feel like, this sounds deeply suspect. In the same way, the mathematically illiterate often like to claim that this or that ordinary visible effect is the result of the uncertainty principle - or worse, that there's a deep parallel between Goedel/uncertainty and some piece of politicosociomythotrophic theory. Even Hofstadter skated close to the edge, but was entertaining enough to get away with it. Goedel shows that in a formal system enough rich enough to build conventional mathematical logic on [most people have no idea what real mathematical logic looks or smells like], the set of true assertions is larger than the set of provable ones. Given the *extreme* mathematical contortions he had to go through in establishing this, I'd be surprised if this were notable among the obstacles facing the construction of the semantic web. -T