
What were Einstein and Gödel talking about? (2005) - cZuLi
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/02/28/time-bandits-2
======
soggypopsicle
unless I'm missing something large chunks were taken straight from
Mathematical Apocrypha Redux :
[https://books.google.ca/books?id=8mBdvAjk_gQC&pg=PA155&lpg=P...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=8mBdvAjk_gQC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=Every+chaos+is+a+wrong+appearance&source=bl&ots=2teQHq3kcO&sig=bLhjrRRQWSaCrtXdj6QRyCOZvhQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQwOSm_tfPAhVDHx4KHYGRBAcQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=Every%20chaos%20is%20a%20wrong%20appearance&f=false)

~~~
patorjk
Wow, you're not kidding:

[Article] > He believed in ghosts; he had a morbid dread of being poisoned by
refrigerator gases; he refused to go out when certain distinguished
mathematicians were in town, apparently out of concern that they might try to
kill him. “Every chaos is a wrong appearance,” he insisted—the paranoiac’s
first axiom.

vs

[Book] > Gödel believed in ghosts; he had a morbid dread of being poisoned by
refrigerator gases; he refused to go out when certain distinguished
mathematicians were in town, apparently because he feared that they would try
to kill him. Gödel said, "Every chaos is a wrong appearance."

This is kind of a bummer too, because the article was a wonderful read, and it
actually flows a lot better than the text in the book. However, it does appear
that a lot of the article is a re-wording of what's in the book, just weaved
together into a better flow.

EDIT: Based on the other replies, I may have things reversed. It may be that
the book is ripping off the article.

~~~
odbol_
ahem plagiarism much? I expected better from The New Yorker.

~~~
dllthomas
"Who made me the genius I am today, the mathematician that others all quote?"

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Nikolai Ivanovitch Lobachevski is his name!

------
ccvannorman
TIL: \- Einstein and Godel were good friends \- Einstein coined the term
'photon' \- Einstein "failed to earn a master's in physics" \- Godel was quite
paranoid and weirder than I realized \- Godel refused to argue (maths) unless
he had an airtight proof of his correctness \- Godel discovered a loophole in
the constitution that would allow a dictator to rise (timely for 2016!) \-
Godel is the one who showed Einstein that backwards time travel was permitted
according to relativity \- Godel's precise cause of death was starvation
brought on by paranoia of being poisoned

~~~
ars
> was starvation brought on by paranoia of being poisoned

After his wife couldn't make his food anymore, because he trusted only her.

Somehow I find that both sweet and tragic at the same time. That a man can be
that paranoid and yet trust someone so completely.

~~~
behnamoh
John Nash (RIP) was paranoid too.

It seems like this ordinary world is not enough for the genius, so their
brains make new worlds and new scenarios (like "you get poisoned if you eat
other people's food.")

~~~
behnamoh
I think they're super creative, and not just in science. In fact, they can
come up with super intelligent methods for killing people, including
themselves. That's why they're always paranoid, cause they think other people
can come up with the same things to kill them.

------
drewrv
> “the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at
> ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.”

Sounds to me like Einstein suffered from a bit of imposter syndrome.

~~~
powertower
Most of his work was the product of other physicists work being brought
together and slightly modified.

~~~
justinhj
Even when you put it like that it doesn't sound trivial

------
merraksh
_Then, as a sort of encore, he published a three-page note in September
containing the most famous equation of all time: E = mc2._

I can't believe the New Yorker can't typeset superscripts. The equation might
be the most famous of all, but sometimes it's also the most misinterpreted and
mistyped.

~~~
getoj
The original magazine text has it superscript - it's probably an OCR error.

------
hypertexthero
> Our mental powers, it is argued, must outstrip those of any computer, since
> a computer is just a logical system running on hardware, and our minds can
> arrive at truths that are beyond the reach of a logical system.

~~~
jplasmeier
I find this argument to be an unsatisfactory against "algorithmic
consciousness". There have been automated proofs of Godel's theorem for a long
while [0]. I don't mean this to be evidence on the contrary, but Penrose seems
to ignore the fact that a computer can realize multiple axiomatic systems, and
use them to make statements like Godel's Theorem(s). Godel's Theorem(s) are
often taken out of context for philosophical purposes, for better or for
worse, and it's important to remember that Godel's Theorem(s) relies on a
meta-language (ZFC) to make statements about PA.

For a much more intuitive explanation as to why consciousness is not
algorithmic, I recommend "The Neural Basis of Free Will" by Tse. His argument
is that neurons and neuronal circuits (and more) harness randomness to provide
inputs to "criterial detectors" which are satisfied when the right
combinations of inputs (spatiotemporal patterns) arrive at the detector at the
right time. This can't be algorithmic, because of the requisite noise in the
inputs and because the brain realizes true parallel processing. As a further
note, he posits that free will is realized in the resetting of the input
weights, so "current" actions set up the criteria for future actions avoiding
the issue of causa sui in free will.

[0] -
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/cs/0505034.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/cs/0505034.pdf)

[1] - [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/neural-basis-free-
will](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/neural-basis-free-will)

~~~
laichzeit0
Is the claim by Penrose not that humans can possibly intuit theorems which are
true but unprovable (Gödel's first incompleteness theorem) e.g. the Riemann
Hypothesis, and thus how could an algorithmic process ever achieve such
intuition?

Perhaps this is a Turing test for consciousness. "I can't prove this, but I've
been thinking about these theorems [inserts true but unprovable list of
theorems] and I think they're true".

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Is the claim by Penrose not that humans can possibly intuit theorems which
are true but unprovable (Gödel's first incompleteness theorem) e.g. the
Riemann Hypothesis, and thus how could an algorithmic process ever achieve
such intuition?

A "true but unprovable" Goedel statement is true in standard models of
arithmetic but untrue in certain nonstandard models. The "incompleteness" is
syntactic, not semantic. The real and complex numbers, AFAIK, only have one
model, up to isomorphism.

And sometimes statements are difficult to prove because they're actually
independent of the foundational system. Or because a counterexample exists
somewhere.

"This problem is unresolved, therefore it's a Goedel Statement within our
current foundational system" is _extraordinarily_ unlikely. For one thing,
that would imply that we could figure out the axiom we're missing and pass to
the stronger system capable of resolving the conjecture straightaway, or that
starting from some stronger foundation like homotopy type theory would resolve
the conjecture right-away. Most unresolved conjectures are not unresolved for
lack of proof-theoretic strength in our foundations.

------
noir-york
Thanks for posting this. A beautifully written article.

------
munificent
I will second the author's remark about "Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox
of Kurt Gödel". It's a magnificent book.

------
stirner
> [Gödel] believed in ghosts; he had a morbid dread of being poisoned by
> refrigerator gases

I wonder how this relates to the refrigerator design Einstein worked on,
"motivated by contemporary newspaper reports of a Berlin family who had been
killed when a seal in their refrigerator failed and leaked toxic fumes into
their home":

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator#Histor...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator#History)

------
Florin_Andrei
> _Gödel believed that mathematical abstractions were every bit as real as
> tables and chairs, a view that philosophers had come to regard as laughably
> naïve._

It's not nearly as clear-cut. It's not the trendy theory du jour, of course,
but it's an idea that perennially re-emerges in Physics circles. For a famous
modern proponent (whose view is arguably even more radical), see Max Tegmark.

------
glinia
The descriptions of Einstein and Gödel's feelings remind me of
[http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html](http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html)

> When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems.

> The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined
> more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they
> did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they
> weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were
> only good afterwards.

------
necessity
I just can't read these articles that try to be a little book narrating a cute
little story. Just get to the point.

~~~
solipsism
Although i don't agree that the article shouldn't be written the way it is....
Can someone tell me the point? Not sure if i should read it.

~~~
gumby
It's just a discussion of Gödel and Einstein written for the layperson. It has
a little biographical detail and context of both, pretty reasonable brief
explanations of their respective theories (incompleteness, photoelectric
effect, brownian motion, special and general relativity) and then Gödel's
contribution to General. A nice article

In typical New Yorker fashion it assumes you have never heard of platonism,
formal logic or 20th century physics but assumes you remember the future
conjugations of regular latin verbs.

~~~
bwanab
=== In typical New Yorker fashion it assumes you have never heard of
platonism, formal logic or 20th century physics but assumes you remember the
future conjugations of regular latin verbs.===

So true and so well put - And I love the New Yorker. If I use this phrase in
the future should I attribute it to you (although "according to gumby" might
not fly so well with my other New Yorker aficionados).

~~~
gumby
Those callous sophisticates[+] should be more tolerant of names of others from
different cultures (even if their name is funny in US English).

[+] The referenced Kliban cartoon seems quintessentially New Yorker Magazine
material but as far as I know he never appeared in it.

