In 1686 in his Discours de métaphysique, Leibniz points out that if an arbitrarily complex theory is permitted then the notion of “theory” becomes vacuous because there is always a theory. This idea is developed in the modern theory of algorithmic information, which deals with the size of computer programs and provides a new view of Gödel’s work on incompleteness and Turing’s work on uncomputab...

In 1686 in his Discours de métaphysique, Leibniz points out that if an arbitrarily complex theory is permitted then the notion of “theory” becomes vacuous because there is always a theory. This idea is developed in the modern theory of algorithmic information, which deals with the size of computer programs and provides a new view of Gödel’s work on incompleteness and Turing’s work on uncomputab...