Overview
- Published in cooperation with the renowned physics "think-tank" Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi
- Presents specially reworked versions of the prize-winning essays from among more than 200 submissions
- Contributors include top scientists, philosophers and thought leaders
Part of the book series: The Frontiers Collection (FRONTCOLL)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (11 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
For a brief time in history, it was possible to imagine that a sufficiently advanced intellect could, given sufficient time and resources, in principle understand how to mathematically prove everything that was true. They could discern what math corresponds to physical laws, and use those laws to predict anything that happens before it happens. That time has passed. Gödel’s undecidability results (the incompleteness theorems), Turing’s proof of non-computable values, the formulation of quantum theory, chaos, and other developments over the past century have shown that there are rigorous arguments limiting what we can prove, compute, and predict. While some connections between these results have come to light, many remain obscure, and the implications are unclear. Are there, for example, real consequences for physics — including quantum mechanics — of undecidability and non-computability? Are there implications for our understanding of the relations between agency, intelligence, mind, and the physical world?
This book, based on the winning essays from the annual FQXi competition, contains ten explorations of Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability. The contributions abound with connections, implications, and speculations while undertaking rigorous but bold and open-minded investigation of the meaning of these constraints for the physical world, and for us as humans.
Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability
Editors: Anthony Aguirre, Zeeya Merali, David Sloan
Series Title: The Frontiers Collection
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70354-7
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-70353-0Published: 21 August 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-70356-1Published: 22 August 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-70354-7Published: 20 August 2021
Series ISSN: 1612-3018
Series E-ISSN: 2197-6619
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 180
Number of Illustrations: 10 b/w illustrations, 17 illustrations in colour
Topics: History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes, Mathematical Logic and Foundations, Philosophy of Science, Theoretical, Mathematical and Computational Physics