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Re: Al Bartlett on growth




On Sat, 08 Nov 1997 13:16:31 -0600 brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
writes:
At 10:30 11/8/97 EST, you wrote:

... Dave Bowman
helped me with the appendix on thermo. [This book refutes a
statement by
Julian Simon using sentential calculus and simple algebra (and U. N.
demographic data).]

Regards / Tom Wayburn

The thrust of Simon's position is that exponential growth continues
until it limits in some important factor, at which time it levels.
Meanwhile population density improves measures of well-being in
general.

I would have thought that arguments describing disastrous overshoot
and
decay or runaway avalanches of homeostatic conditions would be an
appropriate counter.

Sincerely


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK


Absolutely! I like to take a sentence - a particular sentence upon which
my opponent seems to want to hang his hat - and begin by parsing it into
symbols such that it cannot be misunderstood by any numerate intelligent
person or, for that matter, a machine suitably programmed.
When I have established what the sentence implies mathematically, I am
home and can refute it rigorously. The only course open to the proponent
of the falsehood is equivocation. Once he begins to change the meaning
of his terms he is certain to blunder into inconsistency. actually, we
have a theorem as follows:

If the axiom system of a deductive theory is complete, and if any
sentence which can be formulated but not proved within that theory is
added to the system, then the axiom system extended in this manner is no
longer consistent. - Tarski, Alfred, *Introduction to Logic ...*, Oxford,
New York (1994), p. 133.