Perhaps there are really only a few things one can believe about the nature of the universe.
It could be fundamentally knowable, with all meaning intrinsic to itself: a rational system that needs no exterior. It could be that the creatures within it can understand everything in time, or it might be that there are limits on their ability to understand, in which case it would be hard to say that such a closed universe is “knowable” since there is no being capable of knowing it.
What is more likely is that much of the universe is rational, but that there are boundaries beyond which we cannot pass. We can believe that what lies beyond is indifferent and chaotic, or we can believe that it is hateful, or we can believe that it is love.
Finally, one could accept that nothing is knowable, and all we see is illusion.
Have I left anything out?
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2 comments:
This is you chanelling Hart, I presume. I expect that you're right about the chasm set somewhere within the universe, but where do we draw the line between intelligibility and "we-know-not-what"?
I think that Hoftstader might agree with you. I'm still puzzling out his explanation of Godel: in every formal system, "there are well-formed strings that express true statements which are not theorems." According to Godel, it's inherently impossible for any (typographical) system to produceevery possible true statement. Is that true of our minds as well? Am I making a complete ass of myself, trying to quote GEB back to you?
No, that's pretty much the point - the inherent limits of human knowledge.
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