My philosophical viewpoint.

   (Godel was arguably the worlds greatest logician, but he held some "unusual beliefs." RS)


-- Kurt Friedrich Godel c. 1960.

1. The world is rational.
2. Human reason can, in principle, be developed more highly (through certain techniques).
3. There are systematic methods for the solution of all problems (also art, etc.).
4. There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.
5. The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
6. There is incomparably more knowable a priori than is currently known.
7. The development of human thought since the Renaissance is thoroughly intelligible (durchaus einsichtige).
8. Reason in mankind will be developed in every direction.
9. Formal rights comprise a real science.
10. Materialism is false.
11. The higher beings are connected to the others by analogy, not by composition.
12. Concepts have an objective existence.
13. There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science.
14. Religions are, for the most part, bad-- but religion is not.

Comments by Hao Wang:

"Godel lists fourteen items which appear to be an attempt to outline his fundamental philosophical beliefs. These are optimistic beliefs and conjectures. They go far beyond `what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions' as Wittgenstein requires of philosophy. Unfortunately we know very little of  Godel's reasons for holding them. Undoubtedly the centrepiece is his belief that the world is rational. This key belief is an empirical generalisation from his interpretation of human experience, but what is known of his arguments is hardly convincing."


Published: Hao Wang: Section 9.4: `The meaning of the world: monadology and rationalistic optimism' in Chapter IX: `Godels's approach to philosophy' of `A logical journey: from Godel to philosophy', The MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, 1996, p. 316.      

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Godel, Einstein and proof for God

Vithal C Nadkarni, Mar 25, 2010, 06.44am IST The Economic Times /India.

Kurt Godel used to walk every day with his friend Albert Einstein at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. Einstein told a colleague that in the later years of his life, his own work — which had married space to time and spawned the atom bomb — no longer meant much to him and that he used to come to the institute merely "to have the privilege to be able to walk home with Godel."
If Einstein had upset our everyday notions about the physical world with his theory of relativity, his younger friend had had a similarly subversive effect on our understanding of the abstract world of mathematics. Godel , who has often been called the greatest logician since Aristotle , seemed to be unfazed by Einstein's reputation and did not hesitate to challenge his ideas.

Although Einstein and Godel seemed to hover on a higher plane than the rest of humanity, they had also morphed into 'museum pieces' , to use Einstein's words. Einstein did not accept the quantum theory and Godel believed in ghosts, rebirth and time travel and thought that mathematical abstractions were every bit as real as tables and chairs, a view that philosophers had come to regard as laughably naive.
"Both Godel and Einstein insisted that the world is independent of our minds, yet rationally organised and open to human understanding. United by a shared sense of intellectual isolation, they found solace in their companionship," writes Jim Holt in Time Bandits, his profile of the two mega-scientists in The New Yorker.
Of course their politics differed . Einstein supported Adlai Stevenson and Godel voted for Eisenhower in 1952, which prompted the genial relativist to exclaim that his brilliant companion had "gone completely crazy".
As usual, Einstein turned out to be prophetically right, but only after his death. After Einstein's demise, Godel became ever more withdrawn. At some point, he tipped over the edge. Fearful of being poisoned, he would have his wife, a former cabaret dancer, test his food. And when she was no longer there, he succumbed to malnutrition. Along with inventing "proofs" for the existence of God, Godel's work also ushered in a unique philosophy of mind that challenges reductionists and those trying to mechanise it with mindless programs. For all his quirks, Godel also showed that the truth (satyam) could be both beautiful (sundaram) and transcendent (shivam).



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