What Do Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems Mean?

(quantamagazine.org)

37 points | by baruchel 2 days ago

5 comments

  • svantana 8 minutes ago
    Of all the incompleteness-style theorems, I find the Halting problem to be the most approachable and also the most interesting. Maybe it's because I'm a software dev that dabbles in math rather than the other way around. But that makes me wonder if all of Gödel's theorems can be stated if 'software form', so to speak.
  • marojejian 2 days ago
    Interesting points in here.

    e.g. that Godel didn't think this scrapped Hilbert's project totally:

    >Gödel believed that it was possible to redefine what we mean by a formal mathematical framework, or allow for alternative frameworks. He often discussed an infinite sequence of acceptable logical systems, each more powerful than the last. Every well-formulated mathematical question might be answerable within one of them.

    • lioeters 2 days ago
      That part you quoted was interesting to me too. I remember once re-reading the incompleteness theorems - where it talks about a "finite set of axioms", it seemed there may be a loophole if we can imagine a theoretically infinite set of axioms, as a way to approach completeness.

      Overall I really enjoyed this article, short interviews with mathematicians and philosophers on a topic I've often thought about.

  • MrDrDr 11 minutes ago
    > “incompleteness theorems” established that no formal system of mathematics — no finite set of rules, or axioms, from which everything is supposed to follow — can ever be complete.'

    There is usually a 'not sufficiently complex' clause in that definition. Presburger arithmetic is complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presburger_arithmetic

    • __MatrixMan__ 5 minutes ago
      Right, you need to be able to construct numbers for Gödel's proof to apply.

      Hilbert's incidence geometry, for instance, is consistent and complete. It's just rather small.

  • watershawl 18 minutes ago
    It hints at something fundamental to how the universe works, in that there is always an adjacent possible.
  • brookst 1 hour ago
    I don’t think we’ll ever entirely know what they mean.