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kalla724 comments on Rationality Quotes May 2012 - Less Wrong
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-- Anais Nin
This misses the point. There shouldn't be any mystery left. And that'll be okay.
With perfect knowledge there would be no mystery left about the real world. But that is not what "sense of wonder and mystery" refers to. It describes an emotion, not a state of knowledge. There's no reason for it to die.
Nicely said. I'd like to add that perfect knowledge can only be of the knowable. The non-knowable is irreducibly wondrous and mysterious. The ultimate mystery, why there is something rather than nothing, seems unknowable.
There's plenty of inherently unknowable things around. For instance, almost all real numbers are uncomputable and even undefinable in any given formal language.
You can't stop looking for flaws even after you've found all of them, otherwise you might miss one.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox
Not sure why you brought this up, but as long as you did, I'd like to share my resolution of this paradox. Basically, it hinges on the definition of a surprise. If the prisoner is spared on Wednesday, he will know that he is doomed on Thursday or Friday, but is ignorant of which of these possibilities is true. So when Thursday dawns, whatever outcome obtains will be surprising. To say we are surprised by an event is simply to say that we cannot predict it in advance. Therefore, you can only reason about surprise looking forward in time, not backward. Or look at it this way. What if the judge told the prisoner that he was going to draw a slip of paper from a hat contain five slips, labeled Monday thru Friday and execute him on that day. Whatever day is chosen will be a surprise to both judge and prisoner.