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Saturday, December 19, 2020

Gödel, Should, and the Laws of Form

 

An early articulation of Gödel's incompleteness theorem could be seen in the Tao Te Ching's articulation: The tao that can be told is not the eternal tao. (Got this from a talk by Schmactenberger).

When one uses the word should, there is often an implicit model of "perfection" what is being used to drive behavior / actions. From the incompleteness notion, since there is no "absolute" perfection, one can say that all "should's" are questionable for a deeper understanding of what is at play - mental models, agendas, ....

In Laws of Form Spencer-Brown posits the making of  distinctions in the context of the "background".  Taking the background as infinite / infinity, the attempt to create "perfection" will always fail as there is no way to include infinity in a finite set of distinctions. Perhaps not even in lower orders of infinity. Is there even an ultimate infinity? How can finite form even begin to comprehend  that level of infinity?

Perfection, in a sense, can mean that nothing needs to be added or removed. A "whatever" is complete in and of itself. How can that be? All forms that come into being have their roots in the infinite. Those roots cannot be severed since we don't know all their forms. Hence, no perfection in and of itself. However, with a different perspective, roots and all, each form is a perfect expression of the infinite.



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