Fetishes | Hacker News Reader

Fetishes

xkcd.com

19 pointsandreyf18 comments

That's Russell's paradox, which he knew all about, since it was bloody named after him.

Godel would have said something more like this: "Sure, put me down for 'fetish for systems of fetish knowledge which cannot prove the existence of this fetish.'"

Sorry to subject you to pedantry, but someone was wrong on the internet.

I was thinking the same thing.

One of my favorite set theory jokes is based on Russel's Paradox.

A mathematician starts a proof: "Consider the set of all sets that have never been considered. Oh wait ... never mind"

But that's perfectly valid. We have just considered that set, so obviously it's not an element of itself. I think maybe what you meant to say is after that: "Now consider an arbitrary element in this set." That would present a problem. Of course so would showing it's non-empty, but I think there could be a way around that.

Read "Godel Escher Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid"? Wonderful book by a remarkably clever computer scientist attempting a (very tricky) definition of consciousness (or 'a system getting meaning when composed of meaningless parts', like your singular identity from a jumbled mass of 'selfish' neurones), with a view to explaining his thoughts on how to achieve strong AI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

Very funny, but the misspelling makes me wince.

I didn't notice one, care to specify?

Russel

Damn your confidence! I want my upvote back:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell

He fixed it. You can un-wince.

This isn't Digg. This has nothing to do with Hacker News either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_t...

I dare say very few of the Digg population would understand this joke.

Personally, I haven't laughed at an XKCD this much in a while.

Pretty much any xkcd cartoon has everything to do with Hacker News.

I usually don't like to engage in the "this doesn't belong on HN" game, but the fact is that most of us who enjoy XKCD already read it, thanks to the magic of RSS or knowing what day of the week it is. So basically, if you like XKCD, this is old news, and if you don't, this is boring news. Summation: this doesn't belong on HN.

Except that by posting it we get to discuss Godel and Russell's paradox.

Hmmm, I agree with felixc, but you Mr. ars make a good point. Perhaps when submitting the comic it should come with a title in no way obviously related to web comics?

Something that would not interest the digg crowd. Then we get to discuss Godel and Russell, and people like me and felixc feel less need to complain.

> Perhaps when submitting the comic it should come with a title in no way obviously related to web comics?

This one did.

There is no more relevant Hacker News than material relating to sexual fetishes. PG, you might want to rename the site "Sexual Fetish News" just to make that clear.

Thanks for the karma, folks. I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitresses.

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