Dear Dr.

Belaga: When your last e-mail arrived, I had nally received one report on your submission; I had also been promised a second report to arrive soon. By now, I have both of them in hand--nally. I must apologize, once more, that this has taken so long. The two reports on the paper are included below (the shorter one pasted into the e-mail, the longer attached as a pdf le). Based on them, it is clear that I cannot accept the paper for publication. (I am afraid the evaluations are both quite negative.) Sincerely, Erich Reck Editor, The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic ------------------------------------------------------Erich Reck (Assoc. Prof.), Dept. of Philosophy University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 Phone: (951) 827-7288; Fax: (951) 827-5298 Webpage: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~reck/ --------------------------------------------------------REPORT #1 on "Halfway Up to the Mathematical Innity" The author of this paper argues for a drastic revision of Cantorian set theory. Over the years, many such attacks on set theory, or on Cantor's treatment of the innite, have been launched, some of them subtle philosophically or mathematically, other preposterously weak and uninformed. The present attack is not a very promising case, although it does contain a few scientic ideas that are not uninteresting. There are three main weaknesses of the paper (each of which signicant enough, in itself, to warrant rejecting it): (1) The writing is simply unacceptable--many formulations are unclear, the paper (starting with the title) is full of grammatical and other linguistic problems, and most basically, it is very sloppily proof-read. (2) The historical observations made throughout the paper come across as uninformed, i.e., they often y in the face of a large amount of careful scholarship, without being supported in any respectable way themselves. For instance, the ways in which gures from Heraclitus and Zeno to Gdel and Turing are appealed to seem frequently based on popular stereotypes of these gures, or on prejudices the author apparently holds, rather than on historical facts and careful interpretations. (3) Most damagingly, the arguments presented--at some points, while at many others the paper reads more like the mere expression of strong opinions, as opposed to careful argumentation--are incomplete and unconvincing. It is not that the author doesn't have interesting ideas at all, as already mentioned; some of them might even lead in fruitful directions, if they were developed properly; and he or she obviously knows a fair amount of science. However, the core suggestions, as well as many supplementary considerations, are presented in a very unsatisfactory way. It is fairly clear that the author approaches these issues from outside the elds of mathematical logic and philosophy of logic. (Perhaps he or she is coming from physics, quantum computing, or a related eld, I am not sure.) In itself, this is not a problem. However, there is a serious lack of awareness of the ways in which both mathematical logicians and philosophers of logic support their claims, i.e., of what is required in doing so and how high the corresponding standards are (especially in a journal like BSL). One indication of this lack is the manner in which labels like "platonism", "idealism", "pragmatism" etc. are used in the paper, which shows little sense of the kind of sensitivity, leading to careful clarications etc., that is required in any fruitful discussion of such slippery issues. Another is the way in which the author tries to blur

the lines between pure mathematics and physics without considering, in any responsible way, the long history of discussions about their relationship and the ways in which this relationship has undergone signicant, fascinating shifts over time. More indications or examples could be given; but this should sufce. Overall, the paper is denitely unacceptable for publication in the Bulletin.

Referee Report on Halfway Up To the Mathematical Innity

Summary. My recommendation is not to accept the paper Halfway Up To the Mathematical Innity for publication in the BSL nor to allow for a revised version. The reason is not lack of knowledge or expertise. Rather, the main reason is the authors complete failure to meet accepted scholarly standards as for clarity and objectivity, so much so, actually, that it seems outright impossible to expect improvements even from a thoroughly revised version.

Summary of contents. The goal of the paper is basically twofold. On one hand, the author tries to show that mainstream mathematical research in set theory is fundamentally awed by a reductionist mindset, a mindset that dates back to the 19th century (pp. 4 f., 27 f.) and whose shortcomings for mathematical research have never been adequately discussed or addressed. On the other hand and based on this diagnosis, the author oers his own axiomatic viability criterion RSCN as a remedybasically the claim that axioms needs to be justied by object-oriented applications (p. 12) and that consistency alone doesnt guarantee truth (p. 25)something that makes him dismiss, among others, the unrestricted use of the power set operation (p. 16), postulate that 1 is a proper class (pp. 21 f.) and, more generally, that ZFC as a whole is in doubt (p. 24), and claim that Suslins conjecture would become provable once a non-locality principle (inspired by quantum mechanics) has been added to the mathematical analysis of the continuum (pp. 33 .), suggesting more generally that classical mathematical reasoning should be modeled upon quantum computing (p. 36), somehow allowing for intuitive concepts and proofs (p. 41). Remarks on spelling and stu. One should expect that a paper submitted for publication was thoroughly proof-read; this paper is not. Many mistakes, however, could have easily been found with the help of a spell checker, even by a non-native writer of English. For example, the annoyingly missing t whenever t... follows an em-dash. Next time the author submits a paper, he should proof-read more thoroughly and might turn to a source like the

Chicago Manual of Style for more details about punctation and stu. Also, the author would have been well-advised to use a dictionary to weed out many non-English or ill-chosen words, like discreet instead of discrete (pp. 10, 13), naif instead of naive (pp. 6, 15, 17), somewhen instead of sometimes (pp. 31), etc. It can then be left to the referee(s) to address remaining infelicities of expression and to make suggestions as to their remedy. Equally unacceptable is that cross references are left blank, like on p. 16. Finally, some passages, like the rst paragraph of section 3.1 on p. 18 (Independently of the listed above ...) are so garbled that they can hardly count as English. To sum it up, submitting a paper so poorly edited is an insult to any referee and his or her time. Remarks on style. On the rst few pages, the author portrays Cantor as a missionary. Whatever the value of that view might be, it seems clear that the author himself feels and writes like a missionary, trying to preach the one true gospel (his own) to the indels (the community of mathematicians). This results in a totally unacceptable style. The language chosen is ranty throughout the paper, peppered with value judgements that lack any objective basis, and with historical distortions as they t the authors views. For example, instead of starting out the paper with something like,
Set theory, as founded by Cantor in the late 19th century, has since then served as a basis for a more rigorous investigation of concepts of innity. While widely accepted, set theory also met with with disapproval, most notably in the person of Kronecker.

the author oods the reader with an avalanche of words that mixes facts with personal bias and value judgements, and an historical evaluation that ies in the face of many other facts we know:
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor, 1835-1918, the genuine discoverer and the rst forceful colonizer of the Mathematical Innitys mountain range, was not just a scientist and mathematician: the powerful thinker of a strong spiritual bent, he was a missionary or, at least, so was he himself perceiving his scientic vocation, systematically pursuing it as the mission to shed a new intellectual and, hopefully, spiritual light into the mystery of the Innite. It has never been easy to be a missionary, and as many other missionaries before and after him, Georg Cantor has fallen victim to the most sustained and cruel persecution in his case, academic. The rejection and the ridicule were so unforgiving especially, on the part of Leopold Kronecker, his elder and highly regarded colleague, the editor of the most prestigious German Mathematical magazine who considered Cantor a scientic charlatan,

a renegade, a corrupter of youth[11] (p. 1) that Cantors mental health has greatly su?ered. He died in the mental institution unaware of the long overdue recognition his work nally received, in particular, from the London Mathematical Society. There is no doubt that, alongside Cantors health, the intellectual freedom, transparency, integrity, semantical relevancy and, ultimately, the ontological and epistemic sustainability of his scientic quest suered as well.

Sure, the author could argue for all the claims that are put forward or are implicit in these initial paragraphs; the problem is that he doesnt and just takes his perspective for granted. Instead of arguing succinctly for his points and mentioning only observations that are salient for his project, the author tries to convey his grand scheme of things and his rambling goes on and on for the remaining 40 pages, seriously oending the reader. While I understand that we all want to share what is dear and close to our hearts, I nd it unacceptable to do so in a scientic journal. Maybe the author wants to consider writing a book (novel?) instead. The main problem of the paper, however, is the authors fundamental lack of clarity. The papers main goal, the defense of the criterion RSCN, illustrates this point nicely. RSCN is introduced (abstract, p. 1) and later referred to (pp. 5, 12, 24, 30) as ontological relevancy onto-epistemic sustainability CN. How is the reader supposed to read this statement; as (1) [ontological relevancy onto-epistemic sustainability] CN, or as (2) ontological relevancy [onto-epistemic sustainability CN]. The fact that CN is itself an implication (see pp. 5, 12) seems to suggest reading (1), but the author never bothers to make this clear. Likewise, the reader is not told what exactly an epistemic inference is the arrow apparently stands for (p. 12). Accordingly, the main concepts RSCN draws upon, like ontological relevancy and onto-epistemic sustainability, or the veriable explicative strength of theories (p. 12) are never suciently introduced or explained either; the rst two notions not even in sections 2.3 or 4.1 to which the reader

is referred to, while the remarks on p. 24 (on relevancy and sustainability) and on p. 30 (on sustainability) arent of much help either in eshing out what exactly should carry the weight of RSCN. What the author oers to support RSCN are a number of quick historical clues and random philosophical statements that result in a hunch at best what the author might have in mind exactly. And the evidence that is adduced suers equally from unclarity and lack of sucient exposition; examples that come readily to mind include but are not limited to Cantors absolute reductionism, Gdelian and Finslerian Platonism, (p. 4), o Cantors fundamental law of thought (p. 6; well, most probably the author thinks of the well-ordering principle but fails to identify the two), real temporal eternity (p. 22), the idealism and pragmatism suddenly introduced on p. 39, and many more. The reader is likewise left poking in the dark when she tries to understand the abundance of insuciently motivated qualications; for example, why is human thinking extemporaneous (p. 6), Heraclitus and Zenos epistemology austere and minimalist or their ontologiy austere and realistic (p. 10), Cantors power set construction irregular (p. 14), a bijection procedurally evenhanded (p. 13), 1 the authentic measure (p. 21), Cantors Platonism extrovert (p. 38), and so on and forth. At places where the author tries to argue, he doesnt live up to scholarly standards. For example, drawing on Zenos paradox he states that the Greeks had been fully aware of the ontological dierences between these two innities [sc. N and R] . . . the external, existential on the one hand and the inner, intellectual, and in particular mathematical, on the other hand (p. 9). The author fails to advance any arguments based, say, on a close textual analysis of the Greek fragments or a discussion of the secondary literature, why this interpretation captures what Greek thinkers, Zeno and Heraclitus in particular, had in mind. Not surprisingly, then, he ascribes Zeno (and later Euclid (p. 13)), a Heraclitean ux ontology, something that contradicts everything we seem to know about Zeno. Similar concerns could be raised about other historical claims the author makes; for example, that the emergence of non-Euclidean geometries in the 19th century is somehow linked to the Copernican revolution that took place four centuries earlier (p. 26). Lack of scholarship also aects crucial claims of the paper; for example, when the author makes 1 a universal measure of arguments and methods

(pp. 20 .), one would have expected that he addressed the question, what is a canonical well-ordering? For if this question isnt answered, results may very well depend on the well-odering chosen and the measure will no longer qualify as universal. Along similar lines, the authors sweeping Thesis 3 (p. 29) seems to be based on a misunderstanding of Turing undecidability result (ibid). Remarks on contents. As mentioned above, the paper attempts to establish RSCN as a criterion for set theoretical results and research. Is RSCN true, then, or reasonable, or appropriate, or defensible? Probably much to the dismay of the author, any such questions cant be answered due to the complete lack of clarity of the exposition. In the absence of any real argument, there cant be a scholarly exchange or controversy either. Conclusion. Obviously, the author is concerned about certain directions in set theory; certainly something that is laudable. It is also clear that he has some kind of general vision of how the situation should be remedied; this is good, and parts of it are intriguing to read. The attempt to communicate his ideas in an acceptable, and hence publishable form, however, has resulted in a complete disaster. Ive never refereed a paper that lacks so much in basic scholarly writing skills, and which is hence so unclear and so confusing. The only recommendation I have for the author at this point is to catch up on what he missed out so far and to study extra carefully a book on writing research papers, like the classic by Strunk and White, The Elements of Style.