There are two other scientific thinkers that I like who are unrelated to David Deutsch,

but come to very similar conclusions.

One is Nassim Tel-Ab, who's popularized the idea of the Black Swan,

which is that no number of white swans disproves the existence of a Black Swan.

You can never conclusively say all swans are white.

You can never establish final truth.

All you can do is work with the best explanation you have today,

which is still better than ignorance, far better,

but at any time a Black Swan can show up and disprove your theory,

and then you have to go find a better one.

The other fellow who I find fascinating is Gregory Chaiton.

He is a mathematician who is very much in the Kurt Gaudel vein,

where he tries to explore the limits and boundaries of what is possible in mathematics.

One of the points that he makes is that Gaudel's incompleteness theorem

doesn't say that mathematics is junk.

It's not a cause for despair.

Gaudel's incompleteness theorem says that no formal system, including mathematics,

it can be both complete and correct.

Either there are statements that are true that cannot be proven true in the system,

or there will be a contradiction somewhere inside the system.

So this could be a cause of despair for mathematicians who view mathematics

as this abstract, perfect, fully self-contained thing,

...