The Outer Limits of Reason - 9780262019354

Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates whatcannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and reason haverevealed to us, this work studies what science, mathematics, and reason tell us cannot be revealed.In The Outer Limits of Reason, Noson Yanofsky considers what cannot be predicted,described, or known, and what will never be understood. He discusses the limitations of computers,physics, logic, and our own thought processes.

Yanofsky describes simple tasksthat would take computers trillions of centuries to complete and other problems that computers cannever solve; perfectly formed English sentences that make no sense; different levels of infinity;the bizarre world of the quantum; the relevance of relativity theory; the causes of chaos theory;math problems that cannot be solved by normal means; and statements that are true but cannot beproven. He explains the limitations of our intuitions about the world -- our ideas about space,time, and motion, and the complex relationship between the knower and theknown.

Moving from the concrete to the abstract, from problems of everydaylanguage to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of physics and mathematics,Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes. Exploring the variouslimitations of our knowledge, he shows that many of these limitations have a similar pattern andthat by investigating these patterns, we can better understand the structure and limitations ofreason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders of reason to see what, if anything,is out there.