# Spiritus Mundi **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 26, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273 "2003-04-26T05:09:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/1 "2003-04-26T05:09:07Z")
In [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176707&pagenumber=1), most of the way down the page, **Spiritus Mundi** and I have a variety of disagreements. **Spiritus** is an idiot. **Spiritus** claims that the Godel Incompleteness Theorem doesn’t place restrictions on physical computers, but merely on human theories or conceptualizations about computation. He claims that the physical embodiments of computers are fundamentally different from the programs they run. It’s been proven that any Universal Turing Machine can run a program that emulates the behavior of another Turing Machine. This is well-known in mathematics and computer science; there can be no debate about this. This necessarily means that any UTM can be viewed as a program being run by another UTM – there’s no difference between the program and the device the program simulates. The workings of any UTM are equivalent to an accurate description of the operations it performs in response to input. That’s why programs can always be made to simulate them: the program reacts to virtual input in precisely the same way the UTM reacts to actual input. From the output alone, there’s absolutely no way to distinguish the “real” version and the “simulated” version: they’re identical. In fact, the distinction of “real vs. simulated” is arbitrary: we can always view the “real” system as being simulated by another, making it “virtual”. More to the point, computers can be built precisely because a one-to-one correspondence can be made between the interactions within them and the operations of a logical system. Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem says that for any sufficiently complex system (capable of generating arithmetic; in other words, capable of performing basic operations) there will always be statements that are true given the system’s axioms but for which there is no possible proof that can be derived from those axioms. The workings of a computer are such a system. It’s trivially obvious that computers can carry out operations. Those operations are the manifestations of the relationships between configurations within the computer: given input, the computer generates the appropriate output. Let’s say that we’re going to give a UTM several sequences of numbers that represent the axioms of a logical system. (It’s known that this is possible.) The program of the UTM includes the rules for taking the input and generating appropriate sequences of numbers from them. The results are necessarily consistent with those rules: the device is accepting a set of axioms and producing theorems. GIT shows that there will be true statements that those axioms cannot be used to demonstrate. Demonstrating a theorem requires taking two axioms and applying operations on them, resulting in a new statement. This is the same as taking number sequences and applying operations on them. This means that there will be sequences of numbers that this computer will not be able to produce, given specific input. The actual number sequences themselves will be different for different manifestations of operations, but there will be a constant relationship between the sequences and the way the computer represents the operations. The operations the computer is performing are equivalent in their results to writing down mathematical symbols and mentally applying operations to them to produce theorems. _ **The behavior of the computer is limited by GIT.** _ On the fifth page of the linked thread, **Spiritus** says it’s not the case. He has no idea what he’s talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/2 "2003-04-26T05:14:06Z")
Geekiest. Rant. EVER. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/3 "2003-04-26T05:19:29Z")
that’s it? You recapitualte the same flawed arguments and call me the same names as in the GD thread? For this you come to the PIT? Ignorant and lame is a horrible way to go through life. My condolences to your coworkers and family. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/4 "2003-04-26T05:31:12Z")
By the way, nobody in that other thread claimed that a computer was not limited by GIT **while it was generating theorems in a Peano Arithmetic.** Your claim was hat computers are **always** limited by GIT. As I recall, you also extended that restriction to pocket calculators. I suppose “deceitful in presentation” is a pretty easy stretch for someone who has mastered ignorant and lame. I do love the irony though: you froth at the mouth in GD but post this pathetic tripe in the PIT. Maybe you should try reading the forum descriptions sometime. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/5 "2003-04-26T05:38:12Z")
Oh, I’m not even done yet. See [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3334860#post3334860). **SM** claims that he never said that the concept cannot have properties. However, in an earlier post he said _“However, it is entirely possible for good to have a definition that does not admit to logical analysis. (Or perhaps just not one or another method of logical analysis.)”_ He fails to realize that the only way the concept couldn’t be analyzed logically would be if it had no properties. He suggests that the concept could have properties like “self-contradictory” or “non-deteministic”, but these concepts and related-concepts ARE analyzed logically frequently. > [@](#): > > He posts this: **Yes, because the aim of physics is to describe the world. Thus, the evident world is an appropriate standard against which to measure a physical theory. Ethics, on the other hand, is not generally understood to be a study aimed at describing the world. Perhaps this is the problem. Are you defining ethics to be a sub-discipline of physics?** Theories of ethics are obviously statements about the world! Without a world to observe, what systems of ethics are there to explain? Ethics generally concerns itself with “right and wrong”, “good and evil”. If these concepts have no meaning in any objective sense, the objective world still determines the nature of existing ethical systems. I discuss this in the thread; **Spiritus** essentially ignores this discussion. He brings up the nature of the label we apply to the concepts, then claims that I’ve brought it up. I discuss the nature of the concept and its representations; he claims I’m referring to the sounds we use as place-holders in reference to the concepts. I clearly explain a series of events wherein environemental pressures produce creatures with specific ethical systems; he claims I’ve merely made an assertion. He is too stupid to understand that a “value” consists only of an organism’s response to stimulus. Evolution can indeed explain the existence of persistant patterns of matter that are “alive” – these living things will have “values” in that they’ll respond differently to different things. I then consider the case that ethics is not at all subjective, but objective. In that case, its nature can be determined through logic in the same way that any other objective aspect of the world can – through logical consideration of our observations of the world. The properties of the world are dependent on the basic rules that define it; if we know these rules, we can logically determine how ethics is related to them. ---
**Author:** ![butter\_pie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aca169/32.png) [@butter\_pie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butter_pie)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/6 "2003-04-26T05:39:06Z")
I need to go take a cold shower after reading this. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/7 "2003-04-26T05:41:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spiritus Mundi \* > \*\*By the way, nobody in that other thread claimed that a computer was not limited by GIT **while it was generating theorems in a Peano Arithmetic.** Your claim was hat computers are **always** limited by GIT. As I recall, you also extended that restriction to pocket calculators. \*\* When are computers NOT generating theorems in a system capable of generating arithmetic? Computers perform operations! Idiot! We acknoledge that computers compute – they perform operations on input. That is enough to generate the statements of arithmetic. **What you claim is a special case applies to every computer**. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/8 "2003-04-26T05:42:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ferrous \* > \*\*Geekiest. Rant. EVER. \*\* Yeah, but God help me, I L-O-V-E it! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/9 "2003-04-26T05:44:36Z")
This fatuous piece of human flotsam accuses me of igorance and stupidity while he makes fundamental conceptual errors in what he discusses. His “counterarguments” are eerily similar to the Onion’s Point-Counterpoint about the War in Iraq: he just claims that any point made by the opposition is wrong. I say this? He says “nope”. I say that? He says “wrong”. He is incapable of any kind of rational argumentation. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/10 "2003-04-26T05:45:54Z")
Y’know, I was thinking of starting this thread, only I would’ve picked one of the other participants in that debate. I dropped out sometime on page 4. Let me tell you why. **TVAA** , you are quite possibly one of the most deluded, ignorant people I have ever had the displeasure to be made aware of. You are one of the main reasons why I dread mathematical debates with non-mathematicians. Is it so fucking hard to admit that specialists in a field might know more than you do? It’s painfully obvious that you haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about, that you have no interest in learning anything, and that your debating skills consist primarily of running around yelling “I’m right!”. You’re an idiot, and we are all dumber for having read anything you wrote in that thread. Piss off for a while, read a book that covers this subject in some detail, and come back when you actually care about something other than your own agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/11 "2003-04-26T05:46:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SkipMagic \* > \*\*Yeah, but God help me, I L-O-V-E it! 😛 \*\* Oh yeah, me too! Where else but the SDMB can you find someone getting all hot under the collar about the correct application of Godel’s Whatchamacallit? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/12 "2003-04-26T05:50:51Z")
Ooh, it gets better: **Spiritus** talks about TMs whose program generates all statements, regardless of the input. This is indeed a valid case, but he misses a _very_ important point: The TM can be represented by another UTM that models what it’s doing. That model – the computer program – cannot be inconsistent, as it wouldn’t be able to describe the behavior of the TM if that were the case. And since the program is modeling a system that applies operations, it’s sufficiently complex to generate arithmetic – so GIT applies. **GIT still applies to the TM!** The workings of the Turing Machine are limited by it. Every computational device is limited by GIT, even **Spiritus**. It’s especially appropriate in his case, since **Spiritus** _is_ a git as well as being limited by GIT. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/13 "2003-04-26T05:52:46Z")
_Only_ on the SDMB would you find such an obscene and vituperative outburst as we have witnessed here folks. I’m deeply ashamed that the board has sunk to such depths. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/14 "2003-04-26T05:52:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ferrous \* > \*\*Oh yeah, me too! Where else but the SDMB can you find someone getting all hot under the collar about the correct application of Godel’s Whatchamacallit? \*\* Dude, it’s like watching a mathematical gang-bang: Don’t divide by zero! And, um, wear a condom… ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/15 "2003-04-26T06:01:31Z")
I’ve checked my conclusions. I’ve people with degrees in mathematics, physics, and computer science – I’ve even spoken with someone who has degrees in ALL of those fields. I AM CORRECT. Specialists, **ultrafilter**? I have access to _actual_ specialists in these fields – people who understand that a configuration can actually be equivalent to an abstract concept, instead of merely “sumbolizing” it like some insipid piece of modern art “symbolizes” things. They say you don’t know what you’re talking about. Of course, this doesn’t help any, since I can’t get these people to lower themselves to post replies to your moronic and mind-numbing statements (and I’ve even had a few of them read the threads in question… one of them expressed disgust), so as far as the general populace of these boards are concerned, I haven’t demonstrated anything. But _I_ know… and _you_ know… or you would, if you weren’t too stupid to understand your own errors. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/16 "2003-04-26T06:05:06Z")
Okay, so don’t wear a condom. See if I care. ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/17 "2003-04-26T06:05:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SkipMagic \* > \*\*Dude, it’s like watching a mathematical gang-bang: > > Don’t divide by zero! And, um, wear a condom… \*\* And don’t you get the impression that they don’t even notice us mere spectator/hecklers? Such focus! Hey, Mr. Spock! Can I get you a beer? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/18 "2003-04-26T06:05:28Z")
Tell me this is some sort of inside joke… ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/19 "2003-04-26T06:09:35Z")
Wow does my brain ever hurt… ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273/20 "2003-04-26T06:10:39Z")
I’m tired of perfectly good threads slowly being taken up by these people’s imbecilic claims and their gimpy “rebuttals”. If I don’t try to refute them, they think they’ve won… and people who aren’t familiar with the fields in question will think they’ve won. As the whole purpose of the Straight Dope is to end ignorance, I’m honor-bound to fight them while I choose to remain here. And now that I’m posting in the Pit, I can accurately describe these individuals as well. Arrogant, self-agrandizing, pus-for-brains idiots who can believe they’re knowledgeable about logic, philosophy, and mathematics only because they don’t understand enough to know how little they know. I know very little, but I’m aware of the nature of my knowledge, which makes me (and most of the people here at SD) infinitely wiser than they. They post endlessly, claiming they can prove that God exists with modal logic (utterly misunderstanding what modal logic is and what it’s used for), or they gibber on about the statement “I think, therefore I am”, mutilating logic and pushing sanity to the very brink. Sluggish toads! Feebleminded, deluded claimants of ersatz knowledge! Daft and deranged cousins of navel lint! You make eugenics look good. You’re poster children for abortion. Your mothers wear combat boots and chiffon evening gowns – and before Labor Day! (Y’know, I could get used to this…) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiritus-mundi/171273.md?page=2)