----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 7:43 PM Subject: RE: Why we will need lawyers anyway
>
> >
> >That's not what Goedel showed, and his theorem has no relevance to law
or
> >political or legal philosophy or practice. What he showed was that
> >arithmetic is incomplete, i.e., that in any formal system powerful
enough
> >to
> >express arithmetic, there is at least one true proposition not
provable
> >within that system. jks
> >
> > And if arithmetic is incomplete, law can be complete?
>
> Law is not a formal language. You cannot state arithmetic in any legal
> vocabulary. Law does not pretend to have theorems. And arithemetic (or
any
> formal language) does not prescribe rules for social conduct. It's a
total
> confusion, whatever the overeducated idiots Ian cited may write in
their
> papers. I am actually expert in both law and mathematical logic, and
take it
> from me, Goedel's theorem has no relevance to the question at hand.
>
> jks
>
=================
Well I think the issue has to do with whether the law can be consistent and complete and so folks leap from those terms to G. which is goofy; to the extent that formalizing arguments exploiting modal logic etc. are even used in individual cases etc. G. is irrelevant.
However, the issues of self-amendment and self-reference do arise in constitutional law and where one finds self-reference, recursiveness is lurking about. A simple example is 'can the House of Lords abolish itself'? The legal theorist and philosophy prof. Peter Suber, who's also an expert on Godel and computers, has an entire book dedicated to the complexities and paradoxes that arise in legal reasoning. The issues are deep and can scorch ones synapses better than a tequila binge. It may turn out that whether G's ideas are relevant to law are....undecideable. Justin, you'd find his work very solid and entertaining too.......
Here's Suber's book and homepage:
< http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/psa/index.htm >
< http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/hometoc.htm >
Ian