You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

gRR comments on An example of self-fulfilling spurious proofs in UDT - Less Wrong Discussion

20 Post author: cousin_it 25 March 2012 11:47AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (39)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: gRR 01 April 2012 03:03:35PM *  2 points [-]

My next attempt :) Below, "PA" means Peano Arithmetic.

def A(): Enumerate proofs (in PA) by length if found a proof that "A()==a implies U()==u, and A()!=a implies U()<=u" then return a def U(): Enumerate proofs in PA+Consistent(PA) by length up to a very large N if found a proof that "A()==1" then return (A()==1 ? 5 : 0) if(A()==2) return 10 return 0

Proposition: A() returns 1 (if PA is consistent).
Proof:
Let X = "there exist a!=1 and u, such that: A()==a => U()==u and A()!=a => U()<=u".
Let S = "there exists u, such that: A()==1 => U()==u and A()!=1 => U()<u".
Let T = "A()==1".
Let ProvableU(P) = the provability formula of U (PA+Consistent(PA), with proofs of length < N).
Let ProvableA(P) = the provability formula of A (PA).
Let "U⊦ P" mean P is a theorem of U's proof system.
Then:

1. U⊦ ProvableU(T) => S // by inspection of U 2. U⊦ S => ~X // by definitions of X and S 3. U⊦ ProvableU(T) => ~X // from the previous two 4. U⊦ ~X => ~ProvableA(X) // by the axiom Consistent(PA) 5. U⊦ ProvableA(ProvableU(T) => S) // by A's inspection of U 6. U⊦ ProvableA(ProvableU(T)) => ProvableA(S) // from the previous 7. U⊦ ProvableU(T) => ProvableA(ProvableU(T))
// because PA is sufficient to model provability in any formal system 8. U⊦ ProvableU(T) => ProvableA(S) and ~ProvableA(X) // from 3, 4, 6, and 7 9. U⊦ ProvableA(S) and ~ProvableA(X) => T // by inspection of A 10. U⊦ ProvableU(T) => T // from the previous two 11. U⊦ T // by Loeb's theorem

QED

Comment author: cousin_it 29 May 2012 10:12:09AM *  0 points [-]

Sorry for not noticing your comment earlier. It would be nice to have a way to subscribe to comment threads.

I don't understand why the definitions of X and S imply that S => ~X. Does that rely on specific features of your A and U? For example, if we take a different A and U so that A()==2 and U()==0, then X is true for a=2 and u=0, and S is true for u=1.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 May 2012 12:13:22PM 2 points [-]

It would be nice to have a way to subscribe to comment threads.

Use "Subscribe to RSS Feed" on the right.