Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-model-theory-and-godel-s-incompleteness-theorems-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/a/3/d/solution

The fixed point of boxed negated provability gives, in fact, that GL proves . Here is a direct derivation. Since is provably equivalent to a boxed formula, positive introspection and necessitation of that equivalence give . Another introspection step gives . The stipulated fixed point also gives . Combining these two boxed contradictories yields . Conversely follows by normal boxed explosion, and the fixed point then yields .
Arithmetical soundness of GL, proved by translating distribution into the second derivability condition, necessitation into the first, and Löb's axiom into its internal arithmetic theorem, now gives
Any remaining propositional parameters may be assigned arbitrary arithmetic sentences; this equivalence is uniform in those assignments. If PA is one-consistent, it is consistent and sound. Its standard provability predicate for a contradiction is then a false sentence and cannot be a theorem. Hence is not provable in PA. Moreover its negation is equivalent to PA's consistency statement and is unprovable by the second incompleteness theorem. Thus this fixed point is, under the stated hypothesis, undecidable rather than an unboxed reflection principle.

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