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October 24, 2005
Every Natural Number is Interesting
Reading through a written version of John P. Burgess' lecture "Tarski's Tort" (described by John as "a sermon on the evils of calling model theory "semantics", preached at Notre Dame on Saint Patrick's Day, 2005" (Amen)) I came across the following proof that every natural number is interesting:
Suppose that not every natural number is interesting. Then there is non-empty class of natural numbers which are non-interesting. Since the natural numbers are well-ordered, this class must have a least member - call it n. But if n is the least uninteresting natural number, then n is interesting for that reason. Contradiction. So every natural number is interesting.
John will be in Calgary along with Kit Fine and Alasdair Urquhart for the U of C's logic mini-symposium on November 4th and 5th. See you there...
Note to self: stop calling model-theory "semantics."
Posted by logican at October 24, 2005 12:13 PM
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