Questions arise both in the physical and abstract reality of what is decidable or undecidable, what is computable or uncomputable, and which events are predictable or unpredictable. This is connected, in some measure, with questions in Mathematics of what is solvable conventionally, what can be computed through extended procedures, and what remains entirely beyond solution or computation. But similar questions arise in Physics; in part because indeterminacy at the Planck scale and quantum uncertainty even in large macroscopic systems force us to redefine what is possible to know with absolute or reasonable certainty. So this essay examines how we may find our way through some barriers to knowing or solving and come to grips with the full extent of what is truly beyond reckoning.
Jonathan J. Dickau