From the Coronavirus to God

“There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.”
― Samuel Johnson

If you recall this quote, it may be from the 1946 Sherlock Holmes movie, “Dressed to Kill” starring Basil Rathbone.  It does make you think, but it also gives you hope. It gives hope we can solve anything we come across.  It gives hope we can ultimately answer every question – though some may take more time than others.

Unfortunately, Dr. Johnson was wrong. 

The problem here is that from the work of mathematicians, particularly Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), we see there are true propositions that cannot be proved, and can never be proved, true. Many have already been discovered.  It seems almost paradoxical that we can prove them unprovable, but cannot not prove them.  The implication is that problem can be set and then found can never be proved. Such problems are beyond unknown unknowns, they are undecidable.  In other language, we can with a slight linguistic stretch prove there will be Black Swan events, but we cannot prove what they will be.

In today’s Coronavirus event, we find a middle ground for this.  We can agree that a disease will present that will rock the world, but we can never predict the disease itself, the time it occurs, or where it will arise.

In terms of computing we can say a problem is decidable if we can construct a Turing machine which will halt in finite amount of time for every input and give answer as ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A problem is undecidable if this is not so. And there are many such problems.

It is simple to say that Samuel Johnson was wrong.  Lots of important people have been wrong but remain luminaries in our world. But in a deeper meaning, it indicates we may have one day two entirely different fully compatible explanations of the universe but will never be able to determine which, if either, is correct.  Being more theosophical, we may never be able to decide whether or not there is a God, maintaining the ages-old feeling it is a matter of faith.