incompleteness theorem (was: gun control)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 06:18 PM 5/21/99 -0400, Barkely Rosser wrote:
>    I just read both an article in _Scientific American_
>and a book review in _Mathematical Intelligencer_ on
>a new biography of the mathematical logician, Kurt
>Godel, he of the famous Incompleteness Theorem.
>Apparently when he was examined to become a US
>citizen in the late 1940s (Albert Einstein and Oskar
>Morgenstern were present to shepherd the extreme
>eccentric genius through), they had to repress him from
>making an extended speech about contradictions in the
>US constitution that he perceived when the examining
>judge asked him what he thought of that particular document.

That is somewhat strange.  Isn't it what his incompleteness theorem would
predict?  That is, it is impossible to construct a logically coherent
system a la constitional law (i.e. you would find mutually contradicting
statements or principles that are logically derived from the "axioms" i.e.
constitutional law; btw. Kenneth Arrow demonstrated that contradiction in
the rat choice model of social organization in a more systematic way).

In other words, such contradictions are old news, so why ranting about
them, and piss the crypto nazis at the INS.  I was stupid enough to do that
(i.e. refused to agree to serve in the US Army on ethical grounds) - and
what followed warrants a separate story.

wojtek