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Volker Halbach
Birmingham
7th January 2013
Example
(A) propositionally implies (A).
Wir haben also einen Satz vor uns, der seine eigene
Unbeweisbarkeit behauptet.
We thus have a sentence before us that states its own
unprovability.
Gdel (1931, p. 175)
What do we mean when we say that a sentence says about itself that it is
provable (1 -true, not provable, Rosser provable, provable without cut
etc.)?
(A)
(B)
Do (A) and (B) both say about themselves that they propositionally
imply (A)?
observation
A fixed point of a formula (x) (relative to a system ) is a formula
such that () obtains.
definition
A fixed-point operator is a function f from the set of formulae with the
variable v free into the set of formulae such that
f () (f ()).
Any sentence saying about itself that it has the property expressed by
(x) is a fixed point of (x).
For any given formula (x) there is no formula (x) that defines the
set of fixed points of (x), that is, there is no (x) satisfying the
following condition:
N () (() )
Moreover, for any given (x) the set of its provable fixed points, that is,
the set of all sentences with
()
is not recursive but only recursively enumerable.
This is the third paragraph of Kreisels 1953 paper with the notation adapted.
kreisels observation
There is a formula Bew1 (x) and a term t1 such that the following three
conditions are satisfied:
Proof
Fix some predicate Bew(x) that weakly represents -provability in .
By Gdels diagonal lemma there is a term t1 such that
t1 = t1 = t1 Bew(t1 )
(1)
x = t1 Bew(x).
Similarly, there is a provability predicate Bew2 (x) and a term t2 such
that
(i) Bew2 weakly represents provability in .
(Bew1 (x))
is provable in pure logic (and thus in ), Bew1 (t1 ) is provable and (iii) is
satisfied.
Proof
Fix some predicate Bew(x) that weakly represents -provability in .
By Gdels diagonal lemma there is a term t2 such that
t2 = t2 =/ t2 Bew(t2 )
(2)
Henkin and other people have complained ever since that Kreisel hadnt
used the canonical provability predicate.
But nobody (except for Smoryski 1991 and recently Visser) has
complained about the way Kreisel obtained the terms t1 and t2 .
Let Bew2 (x) be the provability predicate from above, that is,
x =/ t2 Bew(x) with Bew(x) as the canonical provability predicate. It
weakly represents -provability and thus expresses provability
according to Kreisels criterion for the expression of provability.
From Kreisels Observation we have:
lemma
Any two fixed points of Bew(v) are -provably equivalent.
Now apply the standard diagonal method to Bew2 (x) to obtain a term
t3
More formally:
1 Bew(1) and 2 Bew(2) imply 1 2 .
lemma
Any two fixed points of Bew(v) are -provably equivalent.
theorem (Visser)
There is a provability predicate BewV (x) weakly representing
provability in such that its fixed point obtained by the usual diagonal
construction is refutable.
observation (Picollo)
There is a provability predicate BewP (x) weakly representing
provability in such that its fixed point obtained by the usual diagonal
construction is neither provable nor refutable.
Let d be the canonical fixed point operator that maps any formula (x)
to its Gdel fixed point and d. its representation in .
Let Bew(x) be some formula representing provability and construct a
formula BewV (x) using some fixed point construction:
BewV (x) x =/ d. (BewV (x)) Bew(x)
Now apply the canonical d to the predicate BewV (x).
(i) d(BewV )
(ii) BewV (x) weakly represents provability.
(3)
0=0 and 0 =/ 0 are fixed points of each of these partial truth predicates.
theorem (Visser)
There is a truth predicate n (x) for the set of n -sentences so that the
truth teller formulated with n (x) using the standard diagonal function
d is provable in PA. There is also a truth predicate n (x) for the set of
n -sentences so that the truth teller formulated with n (x) and
standard diagonalisation d is refutable in PA.
The natural 1 -truth teller is refutable.
definition
A fixed-point operator is uniform iff the following condition is satisfied
for each (v):
f () is of the form ( f. ), where f. represents the function f .
Sceptical doubts:
Perhaps saying that a sentence says about itself that its 1 -truth (Rosser
provable etc) is just a loose way of talking, which is imported from
natural language where we have personal pronouns for expressing de
se-claims.