That’s a great observation — and I think you’re absolutely right to sense that this line of reasoning touches epistemic limits in physical systems generally.
But I’d caution against trying to immediately affirm new metaphysical claims based on those limits (e.g., “models of reality are intractable” or “systems can only model smaller systems”).
Why? Because that move risks falling back into the trap that EN is trying to illuminate:
That we use the very categories generated by a formally incomplete system (our mind) to make claims about what can or can’t be known.
Try to combine two things at once:
1. En would love to eliminate everything if it could.
The logic behind it: What stays can stay. (first order logic)
EN would also love to eliminate first-order logic — but it can’t. Because first-order logic would eliminate EN first.
Why? Because EN is a second-order construct — it talks about how systems model themselves, which means it presupposes the formal structure of first-order logic just to get off the ground.
So EN doesn’t transcend logic. It’s embedded in it. Which is fitting — since EN is precisely about illusions that arise within an expressive system, not outside of it.
2. What EN is trying to show is that these categories — “consciousness,” “internal access,” even “modeling” — are not reliable ontologies, but functional illusions created by a system that must regulate itself despite its incompleteness.
So rather than taking EN as a reason to affirm new limits about “reality” or “systems,” the move is more like: “Let’s stop trusting the categories that feel self-evident — because their self-evidence is exactly what the illusion predicts.”
It’s not about building a new metaphysical map. It’s about realizing why any map we draw from the inside will always seem complete — even when it isn’t.
Now...
You might say that then we are fucked. But that is not the case:
- Turing and Gödel proved that it is possible to critique second order logic with first order logic. - Whole of Physics is in First-Order-Logic (Except that Poincaree synchronisation issue which okay) - Group Theory is insanely complex. First-Order-Logic
Now is second order logic bed? No it is insanely usefull in context of how humans evolved: To make general (fast) assumptions about many things! Sets and such. ZFC. Evolution.
That’s a great observation — and I think you’re absolutely right to sense that this line of reasoning touches epistemic limits in physical systems generally.
But I’d caution against trying to immediately affirm new metaphysical claims based on those limits (e.g., “models of reality are intractable” or “systems can only model smaller systems”).
Why? Because that move risks falling back into the trap that EN is trying to illuminate:
That we use the very categories generated by a formally incomplete system (our mind) to make claims about what can or can’t be known.
Try to combine two things at once:
1. En would love to eliminate everything if it could.
The logic behind it: What stays can stay. (first order logic)
EN would also love to eliminate first-order logic — but it can’t.
Because first-order logic would eliminate EN first.
Why? Because EN is a second-order construct — it talks about how systems model themselves, which means it presupposes the formal structure of first-order logic just to get off the ground.
So EN doesn’t transcend logic. It’s embedded in it.
Which is fitting — since EN is precisely about illusions that arise within an expressive system, not outside of it.
2. What EN is trying to show is that these categories — “consciousness,” “internal access,” even “modeling” — are not reliable ontologies, but functional illusions created by a system that must regulate itself despite its incompleteness.
So rather than taking EN as a reason to affirm new limits about “reality” or “systems,” the move is more like:
“Let’s stop trusting the categories that feel self-evident — because their self-evidence is exactly what the illusion predicts.”
It’s not about building a new metaphysical map. It’s about realizing why any map we draw from the inside will always seem complete — even when it isn’t.
Now...
You might say that then we are fucked. But that is not the case:
- Turing and Gödel proved that it is possible to critique second order logic with first order logic.
- Whole of Physics is in First-Order-Logic (Except that Poincaree synchronisation issue which okay)
- Group Theory is insanely complex. First-Order-Logic
Now is second order logic bed? No it is insanely usefull in context of how humans evolved: To make general (fast) assumptions about many things! Sets and such. ZFC. Evolution.