From: ROSSERJB-AT-jmu.edu Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 12:26:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: waiting for Godel To Good Old Ralph: Well, I don't think that we are going to resolve this. If Hofstadter's book smells suspicious to you, irrespective of anything Rahul or I say to you, so be it. I fully agree that parts of it are somewhat farfetched. But I would also say that Rahul's judgment of it was fairly on beam. The book is serious and most of the actual science in it is OK, even if it is essentially a pop-schlop piece. I am not surprised that you would find Smullyan suspicious. He used to pull dimes out of my ears when I was a kid. But he sure could make me laugh too. Saunders MacLane lives to uphold the banner of purity. Well, good for him. Before the Baroness gets on our case too much about what is all this stuff really about, let me say that I am taking a "moderate" position on pomo here. There is a spectrum between cowshit (hard facts) and bullshit (soft non-facts). Just because something is not pure cowshit does not immediately mean therefore that it is pure bullshit. And it does not hurt to engage in some "thinking about how we think about how we are thinking about thinking," etc. This used to be known as philosophy. You're just a little too hard-nosed about all this, Ralph. I am greatly amused that Sokal pulled off his hoax and there is plenty of bullshit out there to be exposed, but my point was (and is) that you were overdoing it, the inclusion of Hofstadter's book in a category with _Social Text_ vaporizations being such an example. Barkley Rosser --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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