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The Absurd in Science and Religion

The absurd is something like this: there are spirits who drink cologne. Or, even though I am dead, I will be resurrected at the end of the world. Or, even though the wicked prosper, God is good, knows everything, and can do anything.

It seems clear that absurdity of this sort is an essential component of, or implication of, religion of any kind.

My question is this: is there any absurdity of this sort in science, that is, in the very foundations of the scientific world-view?

I’m not sure, but I see some profound indications that there is. Most notably, the Free Will Theorem of Conway and Kochen proves that if experimenters are free to set up any experiment, then the phenomena under observation have an irreducibly random component. This result is not consistent with the computability of Nature, because randomnness is not computable.

The absurdity of science is then the dilemma that either we must formulate theories as if we are free to create any experiment when in fact we are not, or else that we must formulate only computable theories even though in fact the cosmos is not computable.

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