{"id":203622,"date":"2025-01-12T16:07:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T22:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/consciousness-godel-and-the-incompleteness-of-science"},"modified":"2025-01-12T16:07:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T22:07:54","slug":"consciousness-godel-and-the-incompleteness-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/consciousness-godel-and-the-incompleteness-of-science","title":{"rendered":"Consciousness, G\u00f6del, and the incompleteness of science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/consciousness-godel-and-the-incompleteness-of-science2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>In the early 20th century, the mathematician Godel showed that any mathematical system is incomplete, using a version of the self-referential paradox: \u2018this sentence is not true\u2019. Here, neuroscientist and philosopher, Erik Hoel, argues this incompleteness extends to the scientific project as a whole; in part due to science\u2019s reliance on mathematics. More radically, Hoel argues, this incompleteness of science may account for why we can\u2019t find scientific evidence for consciousness anywhere in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s say you lived in a universe where you really were some sort of incarnated soul in a corporeal body. Or some sort of agent from a vaster reality embedded in a simulation (depending on definitions, the two scenarios might not be that different). What would the science in such a dualistic universe look like?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sign up<\/strong> to get exclusive access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the early 20th century, the mathematician Godel showed that any mathematical system is incomplete, using a version of the self-referential paradox: \u2018this sentence is not true\u2019. Here, neuroscientist and philosopher, Erik Hoel, argues this incompleteness extends to the scientific project as a whole; in part due to science\u2019s reliance on mathematics. More radically, Hoel [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229,47,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics","category-neuroscience","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}