Goedel-Undecidability and Pop Philosophy

[omorka]

Ganked from starcat_jewel:

What do you believe to be true even though you cannot prove it?

I might easily give something very close to Rudy Rucker's answer. In fact, quantumduck and I have had conversations that went something like that. (And Freeman Dyson's answer is wonderfully funny.)

In an attempt to be more creative, though, let me phrase mine this way: I believe that the cosmos is fractal in some significant sense - that is, that it's self-similar - and that it's holographic in the same way - each part helps to determine the whole, and contains the essence of the whole. Not perfectly, but significantly. This is why (and how) I'm a worldreader; every part of the universe models the whole in some way, a letter or word or phrase in the cosmic library. And some sense of the whole can be derived from any one part. Moreover, large parts can speak to the state of any smaller part; the turn of a nation can reflect the state of one individual.

I grok this, but I cannot prove it. It is one of my basic principles all the same.

Comments

Indeed

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

For small values of 'prove', one CAN actually prove the fractal pattern universe hypothesis. One need only look at a fern, witness a tornado in the sink, see galaxies when putting cream in coffee, etc. The number of instances of repeated patterns and self similarity are astounding. I would argue further, although I cannot prove this: that self similarity in necc. for consciousness. Without these flagrantly self similar patterns about you cannot develop good abstraction capabilities. Abstraction is the one thing that humans are good at which other intelligent species seem not to be good at.