Direct Attack

My approach thus far to the issue of finding the correct logic has been incremental. For each logic, find something I cannot represent but want to, and attempt to extend the logic to include that. So, since I've settled on a form of lambda logic as a logic for arithmetical concepts, the next step would be to look for an extension into the hyperarithmetical hierarchy or the analytic hierarchy, or possibly to set theory. These form a progression:

arithmetic hierarchy < hyperarithmetic hierarchy < analytical hierarchy < axiomatic set theory

So, a jump directly to set theory would be nice, but the hyperarithmetic hierarchy would be the easiest next step.

This process can continue indefinitely, thanks to Tarski's Undefinability Theorem: no logic is able to define its own semantics, so if I want to find a way to extend some logic X, the standard way would be to look for a logic Y that can define the semantics of X. However, my vague hope is that if I work in these incremental extensions for long enough, I will eventually understand the undefinability principle well enough to see a way around it, thus making one final extension to the logic that encompasses all possible extensions.

This is a silly idea.

So, what about a direct attack? For it to work, I need to find a way around the Undefinability theorem. The undefinability theorem makes some specific assumptions; so, I know before starting that the logic I come up with needs to break these assumptions.

I'll outline the theorem's proof.

First, Tarski asks us to assume a minimal fact about the concept of truth: For all statements X, X is true only when X.

T(x) <=> x

This is called "Tarski's T-Schema". The idea is that if a formalization does not satisfy this, it cannot be a concept of truth. It is possible that more than the T-schema is required for a proper notion of truth, but if there are any, they aren't needed for Tarski's proof. (So, the T-schema is one of the critical assumptions to scrutinize. Is it really a necessary property of truth?)

Next, assume that some logic can talk about its own concept of truth. The idea is to prove that it can then say "This sentence is false", causing a paradox within that logic.

To prove this, we need one more assumption: the logic must contain arithmetic. This is a rather large assumption. However, it is one I am obviously making. So let's continue.

The reason arithmetic is required for the proof is that the Diagonal Lemma holds for any logic extending arithmetic. (So, if the Diagonal Lemma holds for some other logic, we don't need to require that the logic extends arithmetic.)

The diagonal Lemma states that if we can represent some predicate P, then we can create a sentence that says "I am P". In short, the Diagonal Lemma shows that any language extending arithmetic contains self-referential sentences.

Now: if the language can negate predicates, then it can express the predicate "not true" (since we've already assumed it can express "true"). Therefore, by the Diagonal Lemma, it can express "I am not true". Call this sentence Q.

By Q's definition, we have Q<=>~T(Q). (In english, this just says that Q and "Q is not true" say the same thing.) By the T-schema, we have Q<=>T(Q) (meaning Q and "Q is true" say the same thing). Therefore, we have T(Q)<=>~T(Q) (meaning "Q is true" and "Q is not true" say the same thing). Now we seem to have serious problems. In a classical logic, this proves a contradiction, finishing Tarski's proof that no such logic can exist.

So, it seems that there are plenty of ways to get around the undefinability theorem. However, it is not obvious which one is the right way.

Here is a list of some assumptions that could be violated:

1. The T-schema
2. The Diagonal Lemma
3. If we can express a predicate P, we can express its negation ~P
4. Every sentence is either true or false
5. No sentence is both true and false

This is not a new problem, so there are many proposed solutions. Of course, my version is somewhat unique, since I want a solution that not only allows "truth" to be defined, but also any other coherent concept that a human might wish to define.

Some initial thoughts.

The T-schema seems solid, although I can't rule out the possibility of counterintuitive exceptions.

The Diagonal Lemma is an assumption I cannot break, since what I am proposing is a logic that can refer to anything a human can refer to. It is conceivable that the logic humans use does not admit the Diagonal Lemma, but if that is the case, then my goal is impossible because it implies that humans cannot define the logic that they use. If my goal is acheivable, then it is acheivable with a self-referential logic.

Assumption 3 seems solid, but again maybe there are some strange counterintuitive exceptions.

Assumption 4 seems false in the presence of sentence Q; it is far from obvious that sentence Q is actually true or false.

Q could also be seen as a counterexample to assumption 5, if it is seen as both thrue and false rather than neither. Personally I prefer neither.

Source:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-reference/#Matt-sema