If William of Occam was alive today, I’m pretty sure he’d use something like this:
and not any of these:
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Randall Munroe has a solution to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, and to self-referential puzzlement in general.
First, John von Neumann’s profound take on Gödel’s result:
It was a very serious conceptual crisis, dealing with rigor and the proper way to carry out a correct mathematical proof. In view of the earlier notions of the absolute rigor of mathematics, it is surprising that such a thing could have happened, and even more surprising that it could have happened in these latter days when miracles are not supposed to take place. Yet it did happen.
And Randall’s slightly more pithy (but no less profound) version:
Continue reading »I’m no marketing whiz, but this does not seem to be a sensible discount policy.
Why buy one when you can have two at trice the price? Read on for more Wal-Mart “discounts.”
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I always suspected that my inchoate quest to understand quantum physics would pay dividends. When the police officer testifies at my next speeding ticket trial, I would repeatedly demand if he is sure, precisely, of where I was at the moment the offense occurred. When he finally convinces me, the judge, and all present, that he recalls my position with certainty, I’d have my Matlock moment. “Aha!” I would exclaim, explaining that he cannot, therefore, possibly know my speed, handing the Bailiff a well-worn copy of Heisenberg’s article.
After reading Brian Green’s Fabric of the Cosmos, I’ve discovered that my premise was correct, but not likely at the piddling speeds my car can attain.
