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You can never think your way to complete certainty
For those who have exhausted every thought but still can’t find an answer.
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In 1931, a quiet mathematician named Kurt Gödel, in my opinion, broke mathematics. Not a branch of it. The whole thing. He proved, using math itself, that any system complex enough to do anything interesting will always contain true statements it cannot prove from inside itself. The system can’t complete its own map. It will always have blind spots that are real and correct and completely invisible from where it stands. He wasn’t guessing. He proved it the way you prove two plus two. And the thing he finished saying was: finishing is impossible.
Your brain is one of those systems. And you’re asking it to give you certainty, which is exactly the thing Gödel showed it can’t do. You’re asking the map to draw its own edges while standing inside the map. It will never get there. Because the tool is not built for that job. You’re using a net to carry water and blaming yourself for being wet.
There’s an old thought experiment called the centipede’s dilemma. A centipede is walking perfectly fine, dozens of legs moving in beautiful order, and then someone asks:
“Which leg do you move first?”
