ON OPEN-ENDEDNESS

There are some mathematical truths that are known to hold inductively but that cannot be proven to be true mathematically with the applications of mathematical logic and mathematical axioms. There is the famous "incompleteness" theorem which proves mathematically that any axiomatic system can never be completely self consistent or completely closed. A.K. Dewdney describes these results in a book called "Beyond Reason" which I have not read but I hope to some day. The universe is turgid and our understanding of it is flimsy in places. There are mathematical functions which cannot be plotted for example. I take all of this open-endedness as a sign that the world and in particular what happens to a person at death and after is unknowable at best and decidedly mysterious at worst. And given this state of affairs a belief in a higher power is perhaps a reasonable activity to be involved with, that the validity of faith is not excluded on the basis of the bizarre nature of the universe that mathematics reveals to us.