> David pape wrote:
> > >Obvious sources of nondetermination:
> > > Quantum mechanics. [Granted, magnifying it to macroscopic
> > >level is difficult. But not impossible--cf. Schrodinger's Cat.]
> >
> > Excellent point sir! I'm a real beginner in QM... almost totally
> > hammered by even the simplest parts of the maths. I'd very much
> > like to know what you think about the "universe cannot have per-
> > fect knowledge about how it works" proposal in my last posting.
> > Because... well, QM is very very accurate, but not totally so...
> > are there any physicists around who think that the reason you get
> > such bizarre effects as measurement collapsing the Schroedinger
> > equation is because... erm... we're at a level of detail where...
> > erm... maths can't take us any further? Where, due to the limited
> > ability of teh universe to compute its own nature, we're starting
> > to get odd results? I know this sounds like a shitty cop-out, but
> > I'm interested in the idea of humanity's search for truth reaching
> > an asymptotic gap from the Truth...
[CLIP]
> Your suggestion sounds like it would relate well with Godel's
> incompleteness theorems, which I regret that I've never studied
> from a technical viewpoint before, so can't do anything more than
> mention it.
Among other places where Godel's incompleteness theorems work, any formal
system in predicate calculus with at least one predicate with two
arguments will do. This includes *ALL* of mathematics.
[Godel's Theorem can send Raving Religious Rightists into emotional
overload, when applied to the Word. There's enough of a formal core
there to apply Godel's Theorem.]
One of two things hold:
1) A true statement exists that cannot be proven.
2) A false statement exists that *can* be proven.
[or possibly both???]
That is, a reasoning system of sufficient complexity must be either
incomplete or inconsistent.
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/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
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/ Kenneth Boyd
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