Hilbert

[R. Fiero]

>From
plato.stanford.edu/entries/hilbert-program/
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"According to Hilbert, there is a privileged part of 
mathematics, contentual elementary number theory, which relies 
only on a "purely intuitive basis of concrete signs." Whereas 
the operating with abstract concepts was considered "inadequate 
and uncertain," there is a realm of
>'extra-logical discrete objects, which exist intuitively as 
>immediate experience before all thought. If logical inference 
>is to be certain, then these objects must be capable of being 
>completely surveyed in all their parts, and their 
>presentation, their difference, their succession (like the 
>objects themselves) must exist for us immediately, 
>intuitively, as something which cannot be reduced to something else.'
. . .
Gödel's incompleteness theorems showed that Hilbert's optimism was undue."
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It is a major thread from Maxwell's Demon through 'capital T 
Technology' and the Big Science of WWII through the Cold War.

. . . Here's a man who lives a life of danger. Everywhere he 
goes he stays - a stranger. Howdy stranger. Mind if I smoke? 
And he said: Every man, every man for himself. Every man, every 
man for himself. All in favor say aye. Big Science. Hallelujah. 
Big Science. Yodellayheehoo. Hey Professor! Could you turn out 
the lights? Let's roll the film. Big Science. Hallelujah. Every 
man, every man for himself. Big Science. Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo.