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Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem shows that no formal logical system (such as a computer language or program, a logic or math or linguistic or philosophical construct, etc) is capable of being defined in is own terms, of fully describing itself. That just can't happen. Some meta-system is needed. (Meta means 'beyond' or encompassing.) Thus a computer language is defined and described by a meta-language, which is itself defined by a meta-meta-language (a set of rules for building meta-languages), and so on, ad infinitum.

Travel is much the same; no journey can be defined and described and understood fully by referring only to that single journey. Rather, further (meta-) journeys are needed to place a trip in its context. (See the entry on RELATIVITY for more on contexts.) Context is everything; without a context, we're just lost earthworms wriggling helplessly across a wet sidewalk.

Say, for instance, that I wanted to take a trip to Washington DC. Not that I *would* want to return there; I've been in its outskirts on a summer night and it was the stickiest, noisiest, most noisome and miserable and polluted environment I've ever experienced. 99°f heat and 99% humidity at 3 AM, the air thicker and browner and more toxic than Los Angeles' worst smog... I just can't go on... But suppose I *was* such a suicidal masochist that I just *had* to go back. Just suppose...

SIDEBAR: Two Washingtons

God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God. "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over there I've placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people. Balance in all things," God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a land area and said, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God "That's Washington State, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills, plains, and coulees. The people from Washington State are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent, and humorous, and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats, and carriers of peace."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then proclaimed, "What about balance, God? You said there would be balance."

God smiled, "There is another Washington, wait until you see the idiots I put there."

Well, Washington DC is what passes in the youthful United States of America for a 'historic' place, so I need to journey into its history, which luckily only extends back a little over 200 years, but which would involve visiting libraries and museums all over the eastern US and beyond. And Washington DC is a world power nexus, so to understand its current role sufficiently, I need to visit many or every other power nexus worldwide. Without absorbing those contexts, I just won't have an accurate understanding of DC's place in the world.

And besides being a USA city (meta-journey: other major USA cities), DC is also a Southern city (meta-journey: the USA's South). And DC is justly renowned as a terrorist target (meta-journey: other terror targets) and for its corruption and segregation and poverty (meta-journeys: well, you get the idea).

Or suppose that I wanted to go just slightly south of DC and revisit Virginia. Now, I've been through parts of Virginia a few times and it's OK as long as you stay inside your vehicle. But while in the US Army, dressed in full uniform, I traveled in Virginia and was beaten and robbed by a pair of inbred scum-sucking glue-sniffing slack-jawed dick-headed Sons Of The Confederacy. So I hereby warn you that it is NOT safe to set foot in the state, and especially don't speak to or otherwise interact with its (white) residents (or any others that they have infected).

Keep in mind that Virginia *was* the Heart Of The Confederacy (see ROOTS OF THE CONFEDERACY for an overview) and, like much of the Old South, its white population still consists of Traitors, Feudalists and Peons, with a smattering of Carpetbaggers and Retirees.

But just suppose that I actually wanted to return to the vermin-infested, disease-suffused, maggot-crawling, ruin-littered place. The necessary meta-journeys would take me to former slave plantations, distorted Civil War 're-enactments,' fried-everything food purveyors, theme parks devoted to obscure country music has-beens, overpriced ear-blasting automobile races and other 'sporting' events, hazardous but humorous fundy jeezoid (Fundamentalist Xian) gatherings, and shopping malls and beaches filled with the world's most obese and ugly people whose flesh oozes dangerously out of their logo-emblazoned sweat-shop produced plastic clothing. Urgh.

SIDEBAR: The Roots of the Confederacy

Behold, an English journalist, post-1850, (sorry but I don't recall his name just now — I'll dig him up when I get home), Europe's first Foreign Correspondent, the very model for "The Gentleman From The TIMES." His vivid Crimean War dispatches made a hero of Florence Nightingale and, exposing the bungling of the War Ministry, toppled the British government. In 1860 he came to the rapidly-disintegrating United States of America to investigate our politics and culture. He quoted leaders of the nacent (soon-to-be-born) Confederacy that they desired the return of the Crown, to live as subjects under British monarchy. For this, they would venomously betray the Republic that many of them had sworn to defend.

The American Confederacy was an amorphous weed resting on three main roots: the Traitors, the Feudalists, and the Peons. The Traitors described above were anxious to turn part of the continent back over to the very foreign power prior generations had fought two wars and numerous skirmishes to separate from. The Feudalists wished to retain a medieval slave-holding aristocracy, the plantation-owning Landed Gentry who exercise political and economic and social control over the whole of the Old South. And the Peons were the suckers induced, by racial-political-religious propaganda, to fight for the benefit of their 'betters.' Upon this tripod, a nation was torn apart. The wounds of that rupture still bleed today.

In other words, getting the complete picture of Washington DC or Virginia or the Confederacy is a gut-wrenching endeavor suitable only for extreme masochists or the morally immune. Having a complete experience of Alaska or Siberia or anywhere else north of the 60th parallel is painful in another way, as your fingers and toes and ears and nose may fall off due to frostbite or hungry iceworms. Similarly, full and complete experiences of Central America or Sub-Saharan Africa or SouthEast Asia will include intestinal parasites, grinding poverty, and food and drink that'll make your teeth fall out. Bother. Maybe you should stay in Brooklyn.

You don't really need to fret about Incompleteness. You can always take the easy way out. Visit some nice new clean GollyWood or FantasticLand or HowManyFlags theme park(s). Stick to thrilling, family-friendly rides. See the manufactured attractions, the carefully simulated reproductions of someplace somewhere or nowhere. Just forget about any non-existant context. After all, what he hell has any context ever done for *you*? But without context, your travel experience is just *so* incomplete. You'll miss so much. Isn't that a shame? So, pay another admission.

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^{Travel Exhortations} ^{^{by Ric Carter}}

TRAVEL & PHYSICS (II)
Applying Modern Physics to Your Journeys

INCOMPLETENESS

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