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Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

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Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#101

Post by cushpush »

danans wrote: post #78
cushpush wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reflecting deeply on Gödel's Completeness and Incompleteness Theorems, I'd like to contribute to the discussion. The essence of Completeness lies in the notion that a system, constructed on foundational axioms (such as facts, truths, or mathematical operations), encompasses all possible facts derivable within its framework. Interestingly, this completeness paradoxically begets contradictions. It implies the existence…

> This ultimate truth transcends individual systems, offering a broader, more holistic understanding. But the unknowability of that so-called "ultimate truth" implies that it's not offering anything, much less any understanding. The article says Gödel thought that escape hatch for these contradictions is death, because all the local consistency and rationality hints at some greater consistency that must be there. How…

Your insights on the inherent contradictions in rational frameworks, especially in the context of Gödel's Completeness and Incompleteness Theorems, bring us to an intriguing crossroads. Initially, Gödel’s Completeness Theorem suggests that within a certain logical system, all truths can be proven. However, his subsequent Incompleteness Theorem introduces a profound paradox: there are truths which, though existent within the system, cannot be proven by it. This contradiction between completeness and incompleteness in logic itself leads us to question: can these contradictions be reconciled to provide clarity?

Here, we might consider shifting our perspective from a purely rational approach to one that embraces intentionality and clarity. The journey from understanding Gödel’s theorems to grappling with the notion of contradictions could be seen as a metaphor for our search for truth. It’s not merely about accumulating information or solving logical puzzles; it's about the intentional pursuit of clarity. This pursuit often takes us beyond the realm of intellectual reasoning into a space where understanding becomes more about intuition and less about calculation.

As we delve deeper into this journey, we arrive at a crucial realization: perhaps the reconciliation of these contradictions and the understanding of 'ultimate truth' is less about logical resolution and more about experiential realization. In this light, truth is not something to be dissected in the confines of rational thought alone but to be lived and experienced. The clarity we seek may not lie in the resolution of logical paradoxes but in embracing the experiential wisdom that comes from directly engaging with these truths.

Thus, while Gödel’s work brilliantly navigates the complexities of logical systems, it also inadvertently points us toward a different kind of resolution - one that is realized not through further analysis but through personal experience. In essence, the journey from completeness to incompleteness, from information to intentionality, leads us to a profound experiential understanding, an ultimate truth that is realized rather than deduced.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#102

Post by cushpush »

Tainnor wrote: post #97
cushpush wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reflecting deeply on Gödel's Completeness and Incompleteness Theorems, I'd like to contribute to the discussion. The essence of Completeness lies in the notion that a system, constructed on foundational axioms (such as facts, truths, or mathematical operations), encompasses all possible facts derivable within its framework. Interestingly, this completeness paradoxically begets contradictions. It implies the existence…

"A system encompasses all facts derivable within its framework" is a very vague sentence, but the way it's written I would consider it false. Second order logic is incomplete, for example. The fact that different set of axioms lead to different conclusions is... kind of obvious? And not at all what logicians (or probably anybody) mean by "contradiction". Moreover, incompleteness doesn't at all prevent that. You can t…

You are partly right, I made a mistake, I meant to say that contradiction is when we can derive both a statement and its negation, indicative of inconsistency. You are correct to point out that incompleteness is not a flaw, but a natural property of sufficiently complex systems and does not detract from their validity or usefulness. I must admit, I don't know enough about ZFC and the Continuum Hypothesis, but I did not mean to imply that all systems were incompatible.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#103

Post by defrost »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #99
defrost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the distinctive properties of integers is that there are at least 200 of them. Oh, and some of them (either nearly or exactly half) are negative. The table of elements falls a little short here.

> Oh, and some of them (either nearly or exactly half) are negative. Well, it doesn't quite work that way. Yes, you can put the negative integers in 1:1 correspondence with the positive integers, but you can also put them in 1:1 correspondence with the positive integers that are divisible by 2, or 3, or 3,000... or, for that matter, the negative integers that are divisible by three thousand. All of those sets have th…

Bait taken I see :)

Hands up anyone who hasn't considered a stay at the infinite hotel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Gra...

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#104

Post by stvltvs »

mistermann wrote: post #56
stvltvs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skepticism is indispensable precisely because smart people believe dumb ideas all the time. It's our only defense against flimflam and bad reasoning.

Is this to say that you possess necessarily accurate knowledge about the objectively true status on an afterlife, or is this more so just standard culture war rhetoric?

The most accurate thing we can say is that no one knows what happens to consciousness after death. The evidence we have, like NDEs, doesn't support a continuation of consciousness beyond bodily disintegration.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#106

Post by defrost »

erikson wrote: post #21

Kary Mullis the Nobel award winning inventor of PCR did too. He ends his book with this notion.

Also an AGW denier, believer in the supernatural, got high on his own supply of home synthesis LSD, and all round poster boy of Nobel disease.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#107

Post by ChainOfFools »

nprateem wrote: post #42
aragonite wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Maxwell was so impressed by the perfect similarity of the hydrogen molecules he concluded that they must have been created! > No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction. > None of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature began, have…

They never thought of infinite multiverses with random variations in each, and survivor bias.

But this really just kicks the can down the road doesn't it? It's still an attempt to resolve a "why" question with a "how" answer. a fancier way of saying it's turtles all the way down.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#108

Post by 7thaccount »

pseudoscienc3 wrote: post #91
nprateem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means there's a meditation that is supposed to provide direct spiritual realisation. As this involved a transformation of consciousness, it was known as alchemy - change. However, historically the instructions were kept secret and shared using coded language. All that philosophers stone business, changing lead into gold etc. But they were just symbols which basically refer to sexual energy and consciousness. Here'…

> Gopi Krishna is the canonical case illustrating the dangers, which is likely one reason the meditation was kept secret. Curious to learn more, kept secret by who? And why was he the lucky one to receive that information? Just spent the last hour reading his work here: https://www.ecomall.com/gopikrishna/ . Sounds like any other charlatan and guru. From his last interview, seems like a lot of his foundation comes fr…

>"We are looking for backers to help produce a feature film about the life of Gopi Krishna similar to Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi or Einstein. It will tell the complete story of Gopi Krishna from birth to death and describe his own personal awakening and all of its ramifications - it will be an instant classic."

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#109

Post by mensetmanusman »

j7ake wrote: post #89
bardsimpson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rationality is not an inscribed property but rather a natural consequence of observing the order in place. For example, the table of elements expresses the properties of integers as inherent to reality. As such, it is rational and rationally-ordered. This is not so much “philosophy” as it is “logic”, it is the conclusion of philosophy and mathematics and the subsequent origin of the computational reality.

Poor logic here. Listing examples of apparent order in universe does not prove that the universe is rational.

If you believe logic and rationality exist, and you believe that you are part of the universe, then the universe is rational, because you are the universe being rational.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#110

Post by mensetmanusman »

madaxe_again wrote: post #96
aliasxneo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer to look at this not as woo-woo, or belief, but rather logical deduction based on sound premises. Are you saying that belief is woo-woo? Curious to understand how you're relating the two.

Yes. Belief is grounded in nothing - hence it is belief. One could believe in moon Nazis, or Bigfoot, or god - without a shred of evidence for any of them. Knowledge is based upon rationale and testable hypotheses.

Belief that you exist, belief that free will exists, belief that others have consciousness, belief in human rights.
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