Katherine,
From the reading (as far as I understood) the riddle was just that--
a Godelian-type statement-- which exlpoited a flaw in the way the humans
processed information. And as a result they lapsed into a coma.
In that world, they finally found one (the riddle) that exploited a flaw in
the human thought process causing them to jump into one infinite loop after
another (maybe). Perhaps it was a self-referential statement-- which was
refering to many other referential statements. And by the time the person
was into the core of the riddle, they were too far lost in this endless
looping.
Just a thought.
Quoting Katherine Loo <in_limbo@yorku.ca>:
> I am not really convinced that the comas were induced because people fell
> into
> a neverending loop that led information or processing overload.
>
> If the cause of the coma was too much information, then this would imply that
>
> the brain has a limited capacity. Therefore, anyone who reads or studies too
>
> much would fall into comas.
> If the coma were caused by a Godelian-type statement that caused the person
> to
> enter a loop, then why could the person not decide to leave the loop? In
> Hofstadter's reading, he says that when we find ourselves contemplating
> sentences like "Thiss sentence contains threee errors" we eventually tire of
>
> the confusion and jump out of the loop. What about the Riddle would make one
>
> stay in the loop forever?
>
> =Katherine Loo=
> ___________________________________________________________________
> This message was sent to the math3500 discussion list by Katherine Loo
> <in_limbo@yorku.ca> .
>
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This message was sent to the math3500 discussion list by Anil Pasricha <cell@yorku.ca> .
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