RE: incompleteness of ZF

[Michael Abbott <Michael@rcp.co.uk>]

As a lurker who failed to either notice the date or understand any
detail of Paul's demonstration, I appreciate Lawvere's comments.

I do feel, though, that he is overstating the impact of Paul's little
jest.  There were several immediate replies (to the effect, I think,
that F(lim X) is not lim F X), and no riposte from Paul.  My own
reaction was: hmm, it'll be interesting if anything else comes out of
this.

I sympathise very much with Paul's "anti-ZF" stance;  after all, hasn't
Lawvere set the basis for a non-set foundation of practical mathematics?


-----Original Message-----
From: cat-dist@mta.ca [mailto:cat-dist@mta.ca]On Behalf Of F W Lawvere
Sent: 06 April 1999 22:41
To: CATEGORIES@mta.ca
Subject: categories: Re: incompleteness of ZF



Using an old logician's trick (see eg Feferman on paths thru O, or even
Goedel's original papers) as an
			April Fool joke
may be amusing to some within the closed gates of a British University,
but is irresponsible on the world network. Think of the hundreds of
lurkers (who hesitate to speak up so that misconceptions can
be discussed and clarified openly, but) who are now furthering the rumor
that mathematics has somehow been proved inconsistent.The waves of such
disinformation can last for years or even decades.

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F. William Lawvere			Mathematics Dept. SUNY 
wlawvere@acsu.buffalo.edu               106 Diefendorf Hall
716-829-2144  ext. 117		        Buffalo, N.Y. 14214, USA

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