Physical unknowables

TL;DR

This paper explores fundamental limits of knowledge in physics, demonstrating that certain physical unknowables like omniscience and omnipotence are provably impossible, and discusses quantum and chaotic systems' inherent unpredictability.

Contribution

It introduces formal proofs of the impossibility of complete physical knowledge and analyzes the implications of chaos and quantum indeterminacy.

Findings

Physical omniscience and omnipotence are provably impossible.

Chaotic systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

Quantum events exhibit inherent randomness and indeterminacy.

Abstract

A variety of physical unknowables are discussed. Provable lack of physical omniscience, omnipredictability and omnipotence is derived by reduction to problems which are known to be recursively unsolvable. "Chaotic" symbolic dynamical systems are unstable with respect to variations of initial states. Quantum unknowables include the random occurrence of single events, complementarity and value indefiniteness.