Related papers: G\"odel's undecidability theorems and the search f…
In light of G\"{o}del's undecidability results (incomplete theorems) for math, quantum indeterminism indicates that physics and the Universe may be indeterministic, incomplete, and open in nature, and therefore demand no single unification…
General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very…
It is a widespread belief that results like G\"odel's incompleteness theorems or the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics represent fundamental limitations to humanity's strive for scientific knowledge. As the argument goes, there are…
General relativity, despite its profound successes, fails as a complete theory due to presence of singularities. While it is widely believed that quantum gravity has the potential to be a complete theory, in which spacetime consistently…
In quantum gravity there is no notion of absolute time. Like all other quantities in the theory, the notion of time has to be introduced "relationally", by studying the behavior of some physical quantities in terms of others chosen as a…
An ultimate universal theory -- a complete theory that accounts, via few and simple first principles, for all the phenomena already observed and that will ever be observed -- has been, and still is, the aspiration of most physicists and…
We discuss the question of if and how undecidability might be translatable into physics, in particular with respect to prediction and description, as well as to complementarity games.
We revisit the vexed question of how unpredictability can arise in a deterministic universe, focusing on unitary quantum theory. We discuss why quantum unpredictability is irrelevant for the possibility of what some people call `free-will',…
We point out that some questions in quantum field theory are undecidable in a precise mathematical sense. More concretely, it will be demonstrated that there is no algorithm answering whether a given 2d supersymmetric Lagrangian theory…
The picture of space-time that Minkowski created in 1907 has been followed by two important developments in physics not contained in the original picture: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We will argue that the use of concepts of…
We argue that Godel's completeness theorem is equivalent to completability of consistent theories, and Godel's incompleteness theorem is equivalent to the fact that this completion is not constructive, in the sense that there are some…
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate, by means of concepts and theorems drawn from mathematical logic, the conditions under which the existence of a multiverse is a logical necessity in mathematical physics, and the implications of…
We introduce some early considerations of physical and mathematical impossibility as preludes to the Goedel incompleteness theorems. We consider some informal aspects of these theorems and their underlying assumptions and discuss some the…
It is considered the study of determinism in the theories of physics. Based on fundamental postulates of physics, it is proved that the evolution of the universe is univocally determined, proving ultimately that free will does not exist. In…
We point out that spacetime singularities play a useful role in gravitational theories by eliminating unphysical solutions. In particular, we argue that any modification of general relativity which is completely nonsingular cannot have a…
In this work, we show that very natural, apparently simple problems in quantum measurement theory can be undecidable even if their classical analogues are decidable. Undecidability hence appears as a genuine quantum property here. Formally,…
It is generally assumed that the search for a consistent and testable theory of quantum gravity is among the most important open problems of fundamental physics. I review the motivations for this search, the main problems on the way, and…
There are many ways we can not know. Even in systems that we created ourselves, as, for example, systems in mathematical logic, Go\"edel and Tarski's theorems impose limits on what we can know. As we try to speak of the real world, things…
This paper presents a theory of systemic undecidability, reframing incomputability as a structural property of systems rather than a localized feature of specific functions or problems. We define a notion of causal embedding and prove a…
Whether or not space-time is fundamentally discrete is of central importance for the development of the theory of quantum gravity. If the fundamental description of space-time is discrete, typically represented in terms of a graph or…