UNDECIDABILITY
Charles François (2004). UNDECIDABILITY, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 3677.
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3677 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
An ambiguous situation in which it is not possible to decide the truth of a proposition or to take a definite stand in a decision process.
J.van GIGCH writes: “Undecidability existing at one level of language can only be removed by the use of a metalanguage” (1990, p.128).
This is clearly a generalized consequence of GÖDEL 's Incompleteness theorem, and is also reflected in A. CHURCH thesis according to which “decidability is equivalent to recursiveness, which is equivalent to computability” (as quoted by R. SCHOENFELD, 1949, p.88).