History: Gödel Numbers and Lojban

Source of version: 1 (current)

__<- ((Lojbanic Qabbalah))__


Now we can construct GÃ¶del numbers for any ((Lojban language)) text.
Therefore, if we can prove that the lojban grammar & morphology is expressible
using lojban ((mekso|MEX)) pertaining to the GÃ¶del numbers, then, according to GÃ¶del's
proof (1931), it would be proven that there exist lojban sentences that cannot be proven grammatically/morphologically correct using a proof expressed in lojban.

(not like ''((na nei))'', mind you, I really mean correctness on the syntactical view.) ''OK, but ''na nei'' was the kind of sentence whose equivalent GÃ¶del use to blow up sign systems __semantically__...''

And given that Lojban's grammar & morphology seems to be parsable using DFAs, I am pretty sure that it is expressible with arithmetical statements and therefore MEX.

Of course, this is an annoying conclusion, because we feel that lojban is very able to fully express its own syntax. But on the other hand, if this conclusion proves to be false, then it would mean that Lojban's grammar & morphology is *not* fully parsable using DFAs. And because we already know that the grammar is (it is ((YACC))-defined), it would mean that the morphology is problematic. ''(which I was already pretty sure of, dunno why ;-)''

''Although I may have not been precise enough for a mathematical proof, I am sure that lojban's claim about being a "logical language" should entail discussions involving GÃ¶del's statements about logic.''

'''Very''' interesting; the limits of Lojban! I lack the mathematical power to join the discussion, but I am extremely interested in the conclusions! --xod

I believe ((Richard Curnow)) has mentioned before that the DFA (Deterministic Finite Automaton) for handling ((Lojban morphology)) has somewhere between 900 and 1000 different states, and can't reliably be human-generated. Instead, he describes it with a NFA (did I just forget the acronym? argh) (Non-Deterministic Finite Automaton) and then converts the NFA to a DFA. Lemme tell 'ya, the NFA is hideous, too. (the whole point of this is to point out that while the grammar can be proven, nobody is seems sure about the morphology yet) --((Jay Kominek|jay))

''Correct me if I misunderstand, but the conclusion would be that Lojban's grammar and morphology cannot be expressed by ((mekso)) or any other formal system, though the grammar and morphology could still be fully expressed using informal statements in Lojban.''

Of course, as well as with informal statements in any other language. But the point is, ((Lojban language)) is supposed to be parseable using computers, which means that its syntax ought to be fully expressible in computer terms, and thus mekso.
It would be a major lose (correct me if I'm wrong) in regards to lojban's goals...

''So this seems to be saying that either Lojban's morphology is vague in some area, or there are grammatically correct sentences which cannot be proven to be grammatically correct. Why do you assume it is the first? Number theory, a very powerful language indeed, contains true statements which cannot be proven. Why should we expect ((Lojban language)) to be different?Consider that these sentences which cannot be proven to be grammatically correct are going to be huge, monstruously long sentences. I don't think this defeats any of Lojban's goals. --((rab.spir))''

----

''An aside into provability:''

Hey, how can you say "true statements which cannot be proven"! That's completely meaningless. --xod

GÃ¶del settled this in 1931. [http://kilby.stanford.edu/~rvg/154/handouts/incompleteness.html] -- nitcion.

Yes, but this is rather tough.  A useful analogy can be found at
((Goedel's Record Player)).

More information and clear explanation about this stuff can be found in
''((GÃ¶del, Escher, Bach))'' by Hofstadter (see previous paragraph)

----

The class of languages to which Lojban's grammar belongs is well understood. Assuming you can properly decompose a string of sounds or symbols into their separate words, there is no string of words for which membership in the language is undecidable. Whether or not that holds for the morphology seems to be unproven at this point. Maybe the LLG should investigate this and maybe stick their seal of approval on something as the official machine description of the morphology? Maybe I should snarf the lexer out of the official parser and see what it looks like... --((Jay Kominek|jay))

The lexer in the official parser is weak: about all it can do is divide
compound cmavo.  It is ''not'' a full implementation of the morphology
algorithm.

We can decide whether the string is grammatically correct using ((YACC)). However, in the situation which started this discussion, we don't have the option of using ((YACC)). You have to use the numerical rules, expressed in ((mekso)), which determine whether a sentence is grammatically correct. The implication of this is that there exist monstrous sentences, probably involving ((mekso)) which include the Godel numbers of other ((Lojban language)) sentences, which cannot be proven to be grammatically correct using those mekso rules. If you don't believe me, read ((GÃ¶del, Escher, Bach)) and all will become clear. --((rab.spir))

...And is it possible to change the title of this discussion? __Done__

---------

Now that I finally have my own copy of ((GÃ¶del, Escher, Bach)), I've looked into how GÃ¶del-incompleteness works - and I don't believe ((Lojban language)) is affected by it. Mathematics (and particularly systems such as Typographical Number Theory) attempt to determine which statements are true and which are not in a formal way; these systems are incomplete because it is possible to create statements which imply their own falsehood.

((Lojban language)), on the other hand, does not attempt to distinguish the true from the false mathematically. It only distinguishes the grammatically correct from the grammatically incorrect. For GÃ¶del-incompleteness to apply to ((Lojban language)), there would need to be a sentence for which demonstrating it to be grammatically correct somehow required that it is grammatically incorrect - ''without any regard to the meaning of the sentence.'' I don't think that grammar alone can imply anything of the sort.

Additionally, the link [http://kilby.stanford.edu/~rvg/154/handouts/incompleteness.html] points to a theorem saying that the correctness of a theorem in a sufficiently powerful system cannot be recognized by a Turing Machine. We know that a ((YACC)) grammar ''can'' be recognized by a Turing machine. I believe this proves that Lojban's grammar alone is not "sufficiently powerful" to make statements about itself - which is a good thing, because that is the job of semantics - and so is not GÃ¶del-incomplete.

((rab.spir))

Erm. Ok. Again, forget YACC, think LALR(1). Turing machines can determine if any sentence does or does not belong to a LALR(1) language, in polynomial time, given memory proportional to sentence length. The question, then, is whether or not ((Lojban language)) can express a Turing machine for recognizing itself. C is capable of constructing a Turing machine for recognizing itself, and thousands of other languages, and it has significantly fewer primitives than Lojban. (Further, C can express Turing machine rules for manipulating the semantics of itself) I'm confident that if you were bored enough, you could describe, using ((Lojban language)) (and maybe even just MEX), a Turing machine which recognized Lojban. Maybe, though, I'm misinterpreting what the conundrum is. --((Jay Kominek|jay))

Yes, and that is why neither C nor ((Lojban language)) is GÃ¶del-incomplete at this level. Number theory is incomplete because it can mathematically determine whether statements are true or false, which necessitates that there are statements whose truth cannot be determined by number theory. ((Lojban language)) cannot mathematically determine whether statements are true or false. Its mathematics only go as far as recognizing whether a statement is grammatically correct or not. Hence, the mathematical structure of a statement cannot make a statement about itself, and so no GÃ¶del sentence exists in Lojban. Similarly, it can be determined in C whether a given C program (as long as it doesn't do weird stuff with the preprocessor) will compile, because the act of being compiled does not allow the program to make statements about itself.

You could go to a higher level and find incompleteness. For example, you could set up a sub-grammar in MEX - not just the ((number subgrammar)) we already have, but one which would sort out true mathematical statements from false ones. This grammar would ''not'' be LALR(1). Then if you tried to describe this system using itself, you would have a GÃ¶del-incomplete system. The system would __be__ number theory, except with ((Lojban language)) cmavo instead of mathematical symbols.

On the same level, C (or any computer language) ''is'' GÃ¶del-incomplete when it comes to determining whether a program will halt, because there the mechanism used to determine whether the program halts is the same mechanism that the program uses.

It comes down to the grammatical/semantic distinction which is mentioned at the very top of this discussion. If you take the semantics out of ((Lojban language)) (and assume that semantics includes the meaning of statements made with mekso), you cannot express anything. So, in order for ((Lojban language)) to make statements about itself, it has to do so at the semantic level. If you create a mathematical system which can process ((Lojban language)) at the semantic level, you have an AI, and no longer something which is defined by the language itself; and to confuse this AI you might only need to say ''na nei''.

(If I were Hofstadter, I would be able to phrase this much more clearly.)

((rab.spir))

Well, I've acquired GEB, will read that, and from there investigate the original papers as needed to grok this topic, and then return. :) --((Jay Kominek|jay))
History: Gödel Numbers and Lojban

Source of version: 1 (current)

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