Gdels Imperative for a Selfreective Science o

Vasileios Basios1 and Emilios Bouratinos2

Interdisciplinary Centre for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, C.P. 231 Campus Plaine, University of Brussels (ULB), B-1050 Brussels, Belgium, vbasios@ulb.ac.be 2 E.B. is an essayist in philosophy of science. He lives and works in Athens, Greece, ebouratinos@hol.gr
1

Abstract. Gdels work is discussed as a prime example of and call for a o science of science - a science toward the origins. This is done with the help of a new approach to conceptualisation. While the merely self-referential objectication of facts and insights tends to lock one into its products, self-releasing objectication tends to reveal not only their dynamical formation, but their dierent levels of interconnectedness. Inspired by Gdelian thinking, a self-reective science could open new paths toward o a more complete understanding of nature.

Introduction
This is, as it were, an analysis of the analysis itself, but if that is done it forms the fundamental of human science, as far as this kind of things is concerned. G. Leibniz, (Methodus Nova ..., 1673)

It is reported that the great mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene used to ask his doctorate candidates to name ve theorems of Gdel. Professor Kleenes o point was that each and all of these theorems had opened a whole new branch of mathematics and/or mathematical logic all indispensable for educating the new generation. The Protean character of Gdels incompleteness theorems lends itself to an o ongoing re-interpretation within pure mathematics, but also within practical computing1 . Gdels principles [1],[2] were destined to enter an array of diverse o elds such as algorithmic complexity [3], mathematical physics (especially on questions concerning the nature of space and time), epistemology, philosophy proper and even consciousness studies [4]. The student of Gdels work is not surprised at the extent to which his vision o informed his virtuosity. Suce it to recall that in the heart of his epochal 1931 paper, one nds the key idea that the ancient liar antinomy (coming to us via Eubulides in the form of the armative statement This sentence is false)
1

The diagonalization argument has been reapplied for example in the demonstration of the Paris-Harrington theorem (Handbook of Mathematical Logic, pp. 1133-1142) as early as 1977 and since then to other proofs of undecidability, but also in virus detection program design. Am. Math. Monthly 96, pp. 835-836, (1989).

needs to be modied. Through this type of self-contradiction from the sorites paradoxes of Zeno of Elea and his teacher Parmenides, to Socrates aporetic method one traces the perennial quest for illuminating the relation between truth and provability, which lies at the heart of the objectication problem2 Science represents the prime example of the continuous struggle to draw a line between the perception of reality and reality itself.

Symbols, objects, language, meaning

[T]he certainty of mathematics is to be secured not by ... the manipulation of physical symbols, but rather by cultivating ... knowledge of the abstract concepts themselves. [What is needed is] a clarication of meaning that does not consist of giving denitions. K. Gdel [1], pg 219 o

Gdels thinking requires of us to further the study of nature by becoming o totally aware of the nature of that study. In this way we maintain a connecting link to where we started from as we slip into the requisite mental objectications, abstractions and emerging ultra-structures. While reducing to ever smaller units, we dont lose sight of the larger units we reduce from. They keep informing our thought and attitude. We are helped in this enterprise by three basic considerations. The rst is for the ancient Greek understanding of logos. In those days the term had a broader and deeper meaning than it has today (reason.) The new thinking in theoretical physics, epistemology, (meta)mathematics, and neurophysiology mandates a return to this original meaning. Denying the equation logos-reason doesnt imply a rejection of reason. It implies adding to reason the ability to penetrate the image, the processes and the blank spots of reality. It also implies a return to the original spirit of science. The ancient Greeks utilized facts in order to go beyond them3 . As Jean Bricmont once put it, the bones of dinosaurs tell us about the dinosaurs, not about the bones of dinosaurs.
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To the extent that objectication reies nature, it arbitrarily carves up - and thereby distorts - what exists. Ancient Greek is shot through with such a uid but correct understanding of reality. Quality (poiotes) came from doing (poiein), thing (pragma) came from acting (prattein), truth (aletheia) came from not slumbering (a-lethe) and consciousness (syneidesis) came either from bringing together two knowable forms (syneidos), or from adding something indenable to information. Heraclitus, echoed the old function of language when he said that Apollo neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign.

Self-locking and self-releasing objectication

I know one thing that I know no thing. Socrates

The second basic consideration is for language. Words point to specic things, states or relationships. They do so, however, only to the extent that the individual apprehends the specic objects as informed by the whole. To comprehend the ancient quest for understanding both nature and the nature of that understanding, it is necessary to explore in depth the process involved in objectication. The ability of consciousness to carve out and abstract objects from the surrounding whole (what we call objectication), pushes us naturally to lock into them. So unless we have some awareness of this tendency, a certain mechanization4 of thought and of nature becomes inevitable. At its high point in cartesian/newtonian thinking, mechanized objectication disavowed lived experience as irrelevant. The outcome has been horrendous. Nature, animals (human and nonhuman) and societies all suered. Values and meaning were branded as unnecessary metaphysics. Today this attitude is less pronounced. We owe it to Kurt Gdel. Being deeply preoccupied over the ultio mate questions of understanding, he managed to demonstrate the impossibility of evicting value judgement from even mathematical logic. The third basic consideration is for a new kind of conceptual approach informed by self-releasing objectication. Here critical thinking, self-reection and keeping in mind the dierent levels present in a complex interrelated whole, illumine both the objects perceived and their interrelationships. Only by being aware of the creative interplay between dierent levels of descriptions can we illumine how the one emerges from the other and how they all complement each other. Objecthood no longer appears as an attribute of things. It appears as an attribute of the way things are apprehended. From their dierent perspectives, quantum theory, relativity and more recently nonlinear science and complex system studies have all de-reifed the world. As a result we are now able to view the latter as an ongoing fusion5 of physical entities among themselves on the one hand -and of observers with physical entities on the other. Physics no longer permits the cartesian/newtonian approach to dictate all of its thinking. By the sustained use of critical analysis, it has managed to go beyond itself and enter many other elds including consciousness.
4

Interestingly enough mechane a Homeric-greek word, where machine comes from, originally meant a mental device to resolve problems (as in deus ex machina). The word mechanized, itself a victim of selocking obectication, meant a mindless automated process! The term fusion hints a little more appropriately at the actual state of reality described as fuzzy A fuses into NonA and vice versa. A also fuses (however slightly) with B, C and all other entities. Fuzziness merely describes passively the distinctiveness of the borderline among entities and between entities and nonentities. Fusion describes actively how each component constantly interpenetrates with the others.

Understanding beyond paradigms

[M]ind, in its use, is not static, but constantly developing. Life force is a primitive element of the universe and it obeys certain laws of action. These laws are not simple and not mechanical. K. Gdel, [1], pp 233 & 240. o

If 20th century physics has taught us one thing, it is that its ndings point way beyond its conceptual framework. It doesnt mean we need a new epistemology or a new paradigm. What we do need is a pre-epistemology and a non-paradigm. We must learn to think in terms of what we apprehend. We must stop apprehending in terms of what we think. The basic task is to become aware of how we objectify the world, plus how and why we lock into our objectications once we have done so. Pre-epistemology can help us understand nature in more subtle ways. By the same token, a non-paradigm can help us avoid getting stuck on any conception of it. Nothing of this means that we should discard the tools of modern science. It only means that their use should become more discerning. Ultimately three things matter above all else: (1) that we keep systems and minds open; (2) that in fragmenting and abstracting nature we never lose sight of its oneness; (3) that what we count doesnt dictate for us what counts. In 1972, Gdel raised a question, the answer to which will bear critically o on the future development of science. He asked whether our physical and biochemical substratum permit a mechanical one-to-one interpretation of all the functions of life and of the mind [1],[2]. His question touched on the very essence of nature, life and mind in a very concrete manner. Any possible answer hinges on how complexity emerges in quantum systems, in the borderland between quantum theory and biochemistry and nally in the application of algorithmic complexity theory to quantum information theory [4]. A lot is at stake here and to handle it requires an inter-disciplinary eort of immense proportions. How we understand life, mind and whether these are cosmic phenomena or mere earthbound accidents, depends on what informs us as we ask the questions. We cannot understand reality unless we rst become aware of our biases, get rid of our preconceptions; prevent ourselves from being distracted by epistemological considerations and paradigmatic thinking; and most important of all, reect on our own understanding. If life, mind and consciousness are primordial features of the universe, as Kurt Gdel believed, then we should allow them the freedom (and give them the o opportunity) to reect on themselves through our science.

References
1. Dawson, J. W. : Logical Dilemmas: the Life and Work of Kurt Gdel, A. K. Peters o Ltd., (1997) 2. Wang, H.: A Logical Journey: From Gdel to Philosophy, MIT Press (1996). o 3. Chaitin, G.: MetaMath: The Quest for Omega, Knopf Publ. Group (2006). 4. Penrose, R.: Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford University Press (1994).