[FOM] Formalization Thesis

[Studtmann, Paul]

Neil Tennant wrote:

> The only way to embarrass HT
> reflexively would be to grant that it (HT) represents intellectual
> progress. Then the challenge could be issued to Harvey to produce a
> paper Q that would subsume HT. But this is quite easy. For Q, take HT.

Quite easy perhaps.  But it strikes me as having in Russell's words all the advantage of theft over honest toil.  I do not wish to speak for Harvey Friedman about this matter.  Perhaps upon reflection he would be happy to accept that HT is a P-paper that is its own Q-paper.  But in a recent post, he did say the following:

> The putting forward of that THESIS in my posting does represent
> intellectual progress. Of course, it is an extremely short P rather
> than any kind of Q. Obviously if it is elaborated properly by my
> standards - something I certainly haven't done - then it would become
> a Q. It would have, among other things, lots of examples of mine and
> others, where Q's supplant P's.

Paul Studtmann