August
18, 2017 Friday
Bedtime
Story
The Problem with the English Language
In
contrast to our artificial language L comprising of 1000 sentences, the natural
English Language will encumber us with the problem of infinity.
The
sentences that can be constructed out of the 26 alphabets of English language
are infinite simply because there is no limitation to the number of words that
can be used to construct a sentence.
Even
if we consider all the sentences that have been constructed so far in verbal
and written English in the world history to be finite, the list of potential
sentences that can be constructed out of this language is surely infinite.
In
the end, the presence of the word “true” in English language hinders the
application of the process that was described some nights back.
You
would recall that one of the assumptions in the creation of that hypothetical
language L was it would not contain the word “true”.
Because
of the above limitations, one need not assume that it would be impossible to
frame the desired definition of truth for random sentences in English.
Some
other method can or may be worked out.
And
yet, it is not the above mentioned reasons that make the definition of truth in
English a near impossibility.
There
is a deeper underlying reason that seems to pose a barrier.
That
pertains to the use of the word “true” in relation to sentences of English
language.
It’s
use in it can lead to contradictions.
Liar
Paradox is one of the simplest examples for its demonstration.
Tarski
then constructs his own, more elaborate version of the Liar Paradox with statement
that we can label as [G].
[G]
The sentence printed in red on page 65 of the June 1969 issue of the Scientific
American is false.
Tarski
denotes this sentence with the abbreviation “s”.
So
supposing that you get hold of this specific issue of Scientific American then
you would be able to verify that “s” is the only sentence printed in red on it
in that particular page.
Then
we can claim the following sentence that we can label as [H].
I
know what must be going on in your mind.
That
soon this fellow will run out of alphabets to label his idiotic sentences.
Not
to worry, there is a way around that too.
For
now, please read below the sentence [H].
[H]
“s” is false if and only if the sentence printed in red on page 65 of the June
1969 issue of Scientific American is false.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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