EAN: 9780262529846

THE OUTER LIMITS OF REASON - NOSON S YANOFSKY K...

An exploration of the scientific limits of knowledge that challenges our deep-seated beliefs
about our universe  our rationality  and ourselves. Many books explain what is known about the
universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts
that science  mathematics  and reason have revealed 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 tasks that would take computers trillions of centuries to
complete and other problems that computers can never 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 be proven. 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 the known. Moving from the concrete to the abstract  from
problems of everyday language to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of
physics and mathematics  Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes.
Exploring the various limitations of our knowledge  he shows that many of these limitations
have a similar pattern and that by investigating these patterns  we can better understand the
structure and limitations of reason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders
of reason to see what  if anything  is out there.

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