Does Money Exist? 10 of 12

         Part 10. Wider Implications of Jinx and Charm.

 

            According to Gödel, existence is jinxed; to claim one’s own irrefutable presence ensures self-destruction. Therefore a money system, in the very act of proclaiming its own solvency, runs afoul of Gödel’s Jinx and goes bankrupt! I theorize that this ironic pitfall explains the persistence of fiscal booms and busts.

            Gödel’s Jinx also applies, I think, to similar collapses in politics and religion. Invincible empires and infallible faiths have a way of going bust; Gödel’s Jinx explains why.

             Gödel’s Jinx works because self-pride makes an infinite claim - namely, that there’s an infinite and consistent model of arithmetic - based upon finite data - namely, self-pride’s own small self. Löb’s Charm works in reverse; self-proof makes a finite claim - that it has a proof - based upon sufficient data - its own vain self. Self-validation validates itself because it speaks only of itself, and so risks nothing.

            According to Löb, universality is charmed; to proclaim self-necessity is to repeat a truism. Self-proof is empty necessity. It says nothing, and it says it; it proves itself because bubbles rise. Correct self-accounting is an example of a Löbian self-validation bubble in finance. I leave it to the reader to find similar charmed quanta in politics and religion.

            One would expect self-existence to be a humbler claim than self- necessity; after all self-pride merely calls itself true in some model of arithmetic, whereas self-belief calls itself true in every model of arithmetic. But what self-belief needs is merely a proof, which is finite; self-pride needs an entire infinite number system. The joke is that there might not be any models of arithmetic; it’s inherently uncertain; a mystery which self-pride tries to resolve, and fails.