Midnight Philosophy

Gödel proved that mathematics will remain forever incomplete.

The implication is that the mathematics is infinitely rich. Another implication is that all science, being ultimately based on mathematics and logic, is infinitely rich and will never be a finished thing.

This further implies that attempts to create a theory of everything in physics are doomed to an infinite regress of new mysteries and new problems to solve. In unifying the 4 known forces of the universe, we will discover a whole new set of problems to experiment with and solve and so on and so on.

In some ways this strikes me as very Taoist–the more we try and box the truth, the more it slips though our fingers. It is also very Taoist to say that every contradiction or paradox hides new truths. The Aristotlian law of the excluded middle forbids contradictory statements like “A and not A.” But fuzzy logic not only allows for them but creates a whole new set of tools and problems to solve. And so it goes.

This is a first class universe to live in, eh?

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