There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... gover...
But I think it is a serious issue to wonder about the other platonic absolutes of say beauty and morality.
There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there by chance.
No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-compre...
We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a s...
This book is about physics and its about physics and its relationship with mathematics and how they seem to be intimately related and to what extent can you explore this relationship and trust it.
To make this condition mathematically clearer, it is convenient to assert it in the form that the space-time can be continued smoothly, as a conformal manifold, a little way prior to the hypersurface...
It is a common misconception, in the spirit of the sentiments expressed in Q16, that Godel's theorem shows that there are many different kinds of arithmetic, each of which is equally valid. The partic...
In order for A to apply to computations generally, we shall need a way of coding all the different computations C(n) so that A can use this coding for its action. All the possible different computatio...
The reason that I have concentrated on non-computability, in my arguments, rather than on complexity, is simply that it is only with the former that I have been able to see how to make the necessary s...
Mathematical truth is not determined arbitrarily by the rules of some 'man-made' formal system, but has an absolute nature, and lies beyond any such system of specifiable rules. Support for the Platon...
The thrust of Godel's argument for our purposes is that it shows us how to go beyond any given set of computational rules that we believe to be sound, and obtain a further rule, not contained in those...
Specifically, the awareness that I claim is demonstrably non-computational is our understanding of the properties of natural numbers 0,1,2,3,4,....(One might even say that our concept of a natural num...
Q5. Have not I merely shown that it is possible to outdo just a particular algorithmic procedure, A, by defeating it with the computation Cq(n)? Why does this show that I can do better than any A what...
If, as I believe, the Godel argument is consequently forcing us into an acceptance of some form of viewpoint C, the we shall also have to come to terms with some of its other implications. We shall fi...
What Godel and Rosser showed is that the consistency of a (sufficiently extensive) formal system is something that lies outside the power of the formal system itself to establish.