Ready to Accept Truth

"I am looking on benches and streets, in logic and code. I am looking in the form of truth stripped to the bone. Truth that lives independently of us, that exists out there in the world. Hard and unsentimental. I am ready to accept truth no matter how alarming it turns out to be. Even if it proves incompleteness and the limits of human reason. Even if it proves we are not free.

"They are here in our minds, Turing's luminescent gems, Gödel's platonic forms. There are no social hierarchies to scale. No racial barriers given to us along with our brains, built into the structure of our thoughts — no bullying into blind faith, no threats of eternal damnation — just honesty, truth, and reason."

-- Janna Levin, from A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

Listen to Krista Tippet's conversation with Janna Levin on Speaking of Faith (1/10/08) "Mathematics, Purpose, and Truth"