[FOM] FOM posting: EFI Project

[Marc Alcobé García]

Dear FOMers,

Let me invite you to participate in the EFI Project's discussion group:

http://groups.google.com/group/discussingthefrontiers/topics

One of the aims of Koellner's project is to make us think
_collectivelly_ about the many issues posed by the incompleteness
phenomena, so diversity of ideas is a must for this project to
succeed!

Please feel free to make your contributions in whatever form you
prefer (comments, questions, etc.). It doesn't matter if you have not
been able to examine all of the material available, although it
certainly deserves a careful look. It is available at:

http://logic.harvard.edu/#

under the "EFI Project" link and then under the "Material" section.

For those of you who do not want to register as members of the group,
it is still possible to send messages to it through
discussingthefrontiers at googlegroups dot com.

Best,

Marc.

2011/9/4 Peter Koellner <koellner at fas dot harvard dot edu>:
> Dear All,
>
> I would like to inform you of a new exiting project that it
> taking place at Harvard this academic year -- the "Exploring the
> Frontiers of Incompleteness" project, made possible by the
> generous support of the John Templeton Foundation.  The aim is to
> bring together some of the most prominent thinkers who have
> struggled with the following questions:
>
>   1. Do the questions that are independent of the standard
>   axioms admit of determinate answers?
>
>   2. If so then what are those answers and how might we go
>   about determining them?
>
> These are very difficult questions and there are many prominent
> philosophers and mathematicians who have given them a great deal
> of thought. There is a broad spectrum of views. For example, at
> one end there are people like Solomon Feferman who think that
> there are "objective facts of the matter" about questions
> pertaining to the natural numbers but think that most of the
> questions of set theory (most notably, the Continuum
> Hypothesis (CH)) are "indeterminate" since the underlying notions
> of set theory are "inherently vague". At the other end of the
> spectrum there are people like Hugh Woodin who have provided
> serious arguments (based on a wealth of mathematical results) for
> thinking that questions like CH are determinate and who have
> advanced major programs (again based on a wealth of mathematical
> results) for determining those answers. There are many views in
> between and there are views which are entirely orthogonal to this
> ordering. The main purpose of the two-part series is to
> investigate these various positions, compare their strengths and
> weaknesses, and make steps forward in determining the answers to
> the two guiding questions.  We shall do this by actually engaging
> with the major figures in this foundational debate.  Through
> generous external support we have managed to secure the funding
> necessary to make this possible. Over the next two semesters
> there will be 12 workshops. Each workshop will involve a
> presentation by one of the major figures in the debate.  The
> speakers are:
>
> Fall Semester
>
>    * Solomon Feferman
>    * Matt Foreman
>    * Penelope Maddy
>    * Charles Parsons
>    * William Tait
>    * Hugh Woodin
>
> Spring Semester
>
>    * James Cummings
>    * Tony Martin
>    * Menachem Magidor
>    * John Steel
>    * Stevo Todorcevic
>    * Philip Welch
>
> The speaker presentations will occur (roughly) every two weeks
> and during the intervening weeks there will be lectures by Peter
> Koellner on the background material required for the upcoming
> talk.  In addition, the paper of the presentation will be made
> available in advance.  Moreover, all 12 speakers will be involved
> throughout the process —- they too will receive the papers in
> advance and will be given an opportunity to comment on it.  At
> the end of the workshop series there will be a
> master-workshop (something like a conference but more
> interactive) involving all workshop-speakers and all
> participants.  Finally, along the way there will be opportunity
> for world-wide discussion on an Internet portal.
>
> For further details are available here: Go to
>
> http://logic.harvard.edu/#
>
> and then click on ``EFI Project'' to navigate through the
> Overview, Schedule, and Materials and Discussion section.
>
> We hope that you can all participate.
>
> Best,
> Peter Koellner
>
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