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by coldtea 73 days ago
>This is what I don’t get. Was this thought impossible before Principia? On what grounds?

Even the full formalization of mathematics wasn't considered certain (*) before Hilbert/Principia and those 20th century attempts. Much less the formalization being applied everything in the physical world or even animal behavior.

* in retrospect rightly so, because it wasn't, at least not without inconsistency/incompleteness.