Re: Dangerous knowledge

[Dana Scott <dana.scott@cs.cmu.edu>]

I think the premise of the work is silly.  I knew Gödel personally
and many people who knew him.  My long-time friend Robin Gandy was
a close friend and associate of Turing.  I think it is true that
Godel was very frustrated by not being able to settle the status of
the Continuum Hypothesis, but to say that his mathematics drove him
mad is terrible pop psychology.  In the case of Turing, the matter
is even less clear.  For him, persecution may have been a big factor
in his suicide -- which also could have been an accident.  Gödel
did suffer from paranoia, and Cantor was oppressed by religious
questions, which he did relate to his theories of the infinite.
But to conclude cause and effect seems pretty hard to prove.
And what is the point?

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