bit of Pynchon's witty genius, I think, from the Math(s) section

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A slightly different version of Russell's struggle with the set of all sets that are members of themselves. Almost certainly false philosophical lore has it that he spent a year looking at piece of paper with the following written on it: On one side of the paper the sentence, "The sentence on the other side of this piece of paper is false" is written. The following proposition was on the other side of the paper, "The sentence on the other side of this piece of paper is true." Please do not hurt your brains.

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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark Kohut 
  To: pynchon -l ; Pete Cleland ; braden.andrews at gmail.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 12:07 PM
  Subject: bit of Pynchon's witty genius, I think, from the Math(s) section


  I may not have posted this previously. But if it is effectivly a repeat, I apologize. I cannot find my copy.

  Re: Russell's Paradox--of sets which must contain themselves and therefore cannot without contradiction.....

  It seems Hilbert's "solution" was to say something like: Hey, we mathematicians KNOW that almost all the 
  sets we can create are NOT like that........we can tell the ones that are (like that)................................

  So, let's work with our certainties and get some math done.........and handle the exceptions in other ways.

  When TRP introduces the diorama of Hilbert in the Museum. TRP writes,

  It was "Hilbert, without a doubt."......................marvelous


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