___ ___ ___ ___ ___ __

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, B A C H :
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E T E R N A L
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G O L D E N
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A N

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B R A I D
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E S C H E R
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G D E L ,
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B Y D O U G L A S R . H O F S T A D T E R
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___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _
__ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _
__ ___ ___ ___ ___|
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Douglas R. Hofstadter. 1979. "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid." The
Harvester Press Ltd.

Epimenides Paradox (Liar Paradox)

I am lying.
This sentence is false.
Quine's version:
"yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation" yields falseho
od when preceded by its quotation.
Or:
"yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined.

Cantor's Diagonal Argument

Let us just consider real numbers between 0 and 1. Assume, for the sake of argum
ent, that an infinite list
_could_ be given, in which each positive integer N is matched up with a real num
ber r(N) between 0 and 1,
and in which each real number between 0 and 1 occurs somewhere down the line. Si
nce real numbers are
given by infinite decimals, we can imagine that the beginning of the table might
look as follows:
9
.
.
3
.
.
8
.
.
1

r(1):

r(2):

r(3):

r(4):

2
.
.
3
.
.
1
.
.
3

.[1]

.3

.7

.4

4
6
.
3
.
8
.
5

[3]

1
5
.

5
3
.

3
3
.

3
3
.

2
.
6

[8]

2
8
.
2

[2]

.
.
[0]
.
.

r(5):
0

.
.
.

.
.5
0

.
0
0

.
0
0

0
.

The digits that run down the diagonal are in brackets: 1, 3, 8, 2, 0, . . . Now
those diagonal digits are going
to be used in making a special real number d, which is between 0 and 1 but which
, as we will see, is not in
the list. To make d, you take the diagonal digits in order, and change each one
of them to some other digit.
When you prefix this sequence of digits by a decimal point, you have d. There ar
e of course many ways of
changing a digit to some other digit, and correspondingly many different d's.Sup
pose, for example, that we
*subtract 1 from the diagonal digits* (with the convention that 1 taken from 0 i
s 9). Then our number d will be:
.

.0

Now, because of the way we constructed it,

d's 1st digit is not the same as the 1st digit of r(1);
d's 2nd digit is not the same as the 2nd digit of r(2);
d's 3rd digit is not the same as the 3rd digit of r(3);
Hence,
d is different from r(1);
d is different from r(2);
d is different from r(3);
. . . and so on.
In other words, d is not in the list! The set of integers is not big enough to i
ndex the set of reals.

Godel's Incompleteness Theorem

All consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propo

sitions.