Re: Name the thesis: "Formal sentences capture informal ones"

From: r.e.s. (r.s_at_ZZmindspring.com)
Date: 01/30/05 

Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 06:04:17 GMT

"William Elliot" <marsh@privacy.net> wrote ...
> r.e.s. wrote:
>> <tchow@lsa.umich.edu> wrote ...
>>>
>>> (*) Formal sentences (in PA or ZFC for example) adequately express
>>> their informal counterparts.
>>
>> That reminds me of what Davis & Hersh say about
>> Hilbert's "formalist premise" ...
>>
> It's the converse of Hilbert's thesis, that every informal mathematical
> statement can be formalized.

That's not quite what the premise quoted below says, IMO.

>> "[...]the formalist premise,
>> that a solidly founded theory about formal sentences
>> could validate the mathematical activity of real life [...]"

This says, roughly, that the formal validates the informal,
which suggests that the informal can be formally expressed
adequately enough to be validated.

--r.e.s.