Well, I've finally gotten around to reading Godel (no umlaut for me!), Escher, Bach. A thought occurred to me: there's a sort of Godelian incompleteness about the whole First Cause, or Prime Mover, or World sits on an elephant sits on a tortoise sits on another tortoise etc. argument. It's been said that, if ours is a system of causes and effects, surely it stands to reason that somewhere, at the beginning of time, there was some master cause that caused all the other effects/causes that have ever happened (insert divinity here). Obviously using this to justify a belief that going to church will cause me to go to an enjoyable afterlife has some problems; even using it to justify a belief that there is some kind of abstract Supreme Being out there has problems (who created the Creator?). But I've never found that especially satisfying.

What I find more satisfying is thinking of the logic of cause and effect as a lens with a Godelian blind spot. That logical system simply can't produce conclusions concerning a causeless effect. Some might say that was already obvious, but I think it's fun to stick the Godel brand name on it.

I posted this just out of curiosity to see if this association between two different concepts yields anything more interesting - if it's even valid. In other words, no, you don't need to waste time telling me what a boring, obvious tautology this is. I already know.

By the way, I haven't finished GEB yet. Don't spoil the ending. So far I think Achilles did it.