guthrie
Posts: 696
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (Jay Ray @ Mar. 27 2006,09:16) | | Quote | | life is an axiom and unsolvable within science. |
I think he's referring to Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. If you're big on math or logic, this theorem probably has influenced you during your studies. I've never studied the formal systems of either math or logic, so look this guy up if you want to be sure I'm not talking out of my dorsal meatus.
From what I understand of it, the incompleteness theorem says that in any formal, structured system of logic or rules or what have you, there are true things about that system that cannot be derived from the rules of the system itself.
Or to put it another way, the formal system must make some assumptions (axioms) going in that are unproved by the system itself. It needs input from outside the system to get it going at all. In this way, Godel formalized what most of us rubes refer to as "gaps in the theory".
So the originating quote extends the idea out from math and logic to biology. It's making the claim that in the "formal system" of evolutionary biology, life itself is just such an axiom.
I'm not sure why Avo would use this quote if she didn't understand it. But at least at first glance, it seems to support her recurring claim that, "You can't explain abiogenesis. You can't explain the origin of the universe." In so far as we can consider biological evolution or the big bang a "formal system", Godel's theorem seems to hold to the same degree.
A claim I agree with, on the whole, although I also say that we are working on figuring it out and expect we shall do so in a few generations.
The part I disagree with in this statement is that creationists of all stripes posit GOD, along with a whole host of this god's presumed qualities, as the answer to those gaps. According to them, god needs no beginning axioms. |
re Goedel- I used to think that too, then I read the wikipedia entry. As far as I understand it, Goedels incompletenmess theorem only holds true withing certain narrow areas of mathematics, not in all formal systems of logic.
Thus, if you want to use it about the universe, your going to have to demonstrate, logcally and mathematically, how the universe is like one of these partical areas of maths. Given that we dont know nearly everything about the total universe, I can safely say that anyone appealing to Goedel to bolster their ignorance can be ignored.
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