A recent favourite from XKCD
In a case of bizzare, recursive self-reference, GEB briefly touches on whether or not the universe is deterministic – not too long after this comic was published, and just before I read a blog post with the same title as this one. After a discussion on formal systems (basic elements and rules with which to operate on them, usually with an interpretation that links them to the ‘real world’), our author Hofstadter wonders if there is a formal system which could describe the entire universe. According to the definitive article on Wikipedia, quantum mechanics could oppose a deterministic universal view, due to probabilistic (aka ‘random’) events at the subatomic level. I ask, could seemingly random results actually be the making of a formal system, not yet discovered by mere mortals? Perhaps the ‘randomness’ in, say, atomic decay is explainable by some process which distributes outcomes in a pseudo-random manner.
The supernatural is but a label applied to the things we can’t explain. Not yet anyway. Modern science can explain some things – such as stars, geography, the weather and all kinds of electronic, wireless gadgetry – that were in the realm of superstition hundreds of years ago. Could it be that God is the personification of such unexplained phenomena, and that pesonal comprehension of god is shaped by the hand of intuition?
I haven’t finished the book – in fact, reading has been on hold all week. I have a feeling that determinism may reappear before I’m done though.
