On Formally Undecidable Propositions of TNT and Related Systems

By Jos Emmanuel Sainz Jaime

The preceding discussion got us to the point where we saw how TNT can "introspect" on the notion
of TNT -theoremhood. This is the essence of the first part of the proof. We now wish to press on to
the second major idea of the proof, by developing a notion which allows the concentration of this
introspection into a single formula. To do this, we need to look at what happens to the Godel
number of a formula when you modify the formula structurally in a simple way. In fact, we shall
consider this specific modification: replacement of all free variables by a specific numeral.
We now have reached the crucial point where we can combine all of our disassembled parts into
one meaningful whole. We want to use the machinery of the TNT-PROOF-PAlR and SUB formulas in
some way to construct a single sentence of TNT whose interpretation is: "This very string of TNT is
not a TNT -theorem." How do we do it? Even at this point, with all the necessary machinery in front
of us, the answer is not easy to find.
A curious and perhaps frivolous-seeming notion is that of substituting a formula's own G6del
number into itself. This is quite parallel to that other curious, and perhaps frivolous-seeming, notion
of "quining" in the Air on C's String. Yet quining turned out to have a funny kind of importance, in
that it showed a new way of making a self-referential sentence. Selfreference of the Quine variety
sneaks up on you from behind the first time you see it-but once you understand the principle, you
appreciate that it is quite simple and lovely. The arithmetical version of quining-let's call it
arithmoquining-will allow us to make a TNT-sentence which is "about itself".
Now if you look back in the Air on G's String, you will see that the ultimate trick necessary for
achieving self-reference in Quine's way is to quine a sentence which itself talks about the concept
of quining. It's not enough just to quine-you must quine a quine-mentioning sentence! All right,
thenthe parallel trick in our case must be to arithmoquine some formula which itself is talking about
the notion of arithmoquining.
Since G's interpretation is true, the interpretation of its negation -G is false. And we know that no
false statements are derivable in TNT. Then us neither G nor its negation -G can be a theorem of
TNT. We have found a "hole" in our system-an undecidable proposition. This has a number of
ramifications.
Here is one curious fact which follows from G's undecidability: although neither G nor -G is a
theorem, the formula <Gv-G> is a theorem, since the rules of the Propositional Calculus ensure that
all well-formed formulas of the form <Pv-P> are theorems.
This is one simple example where an assertion inside the system and an assertion about the system
seem at odds with each other. It makes one wonder if the system really reflects itself accurately.
Does the "reflected
metamathematics" which exists inside TNT correspond well to the metamathematics which we do?
This was one of the questions which intrigued Godel when he wrote his paper. In particular, he was
interested in whether it was possible, in the "reflected metamathematics", to prove TNT's
consistency. Recall that this was a great philosophical dilemma of the day: how to prove a system
consistent. Godel found a simple way to
express the statement "TNT is consistent" in a TNT formula; and then he showed that this formula
(and all others which express the same idea) are only theorems of TNT under one condition: that
TNT is inconsistent. This perverse result was a severe blow to optimists who expected that one could
find a rigorous proof that mathematics is contradiction-free.