An Incompleteness Result Regarding Within-System Modeling

15 Pages Posted: 23 Nov 2021 Last revised: 11 Feb 2022

See all articles by Abigail Devereaux

Abigail Devereaux

Wichita State University

Roger Koppl

Syracuse University

Stuart Kauffman

Institute for Systems Biology

Andrea Roli

Universita di Bologna

Date Written: November 20, 2021

Abstract

Models typically represent phemonena within-system, but there are times we want to represent the system itself. System-modeling depends on the perspective of the modeler, as demonstrated in Wolpert [1, 2]. Using meta-mathematical techniques, we prove a more general result for within-system modeling by demonstrating a novel set of impossibility results, namely, that a system cannot be completely modeled from within the system. Notably, our proof does not require specifying the functional form of inference, and seems to put additional constraints on inference devices. We discuss implications of our result for the social sciences, biological sciences, and physics.

Keywords: metamathematics, incompleteness, Gödel, inference, epistemics

Suggested Citation

Devereaux, Abigail and Koppl, Roger and Kauffman, Stuart and Roli, Andrea, An Incompleteness Result Regarding Within-System Modeling (November 20, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3968077 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3968077

Abigail Devereaux (Contact Author)

Wichita State University ( email )

Wichita, KS 67260-0078
United States

Roger Koppl

Syracuse University ( email )

900 S. Crouse Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13244-2130
United States
3154434535 (Phone)
3154421449 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://whitman.syr.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty/showInfo.aspx?id=468

Stuart Kauffman

Institute for Systems Biology ( email )

401 Terry Ave N.
Seattle, WA 98109
United States

Andrea Roli

Universita di Bologna ( email )

Piazza Scaravilli 2
Bologna, 40100
Italy

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