[you] -- lightning bugs
Aristotle says that all knowledge is ultimately based on a small set of assumptions called First Principles. Euclid’s 4th Postulate — all right angles are congruent — is a good example. First Principles have intuitive appeal, cannot be reduced to more basic facts, and seem impossible to argue against. Aristotle suggests that we simply accept them as true and proceed from there.
As powerful and successful as this approach is in solving practical problems, it is important to pause from time to time and reflect on the fact that the entire body of human knowledge is grounded in assumptions. These assumptions may be wrong. You may find an instance where one right angle is not congruent to another. The towers of human thought are built on sand. At their core lies emptiness.
In the early 20th century, Kurt Godel expanded on Aristotle’s ideas by proving that no formal system can demonstrate its own consistency. There will always be statements that are true but impossible to prove in a given system, regardless of which set of First Principles is chosen and regardless of how large this set is.
Truth exists, but it cannot be captured by a system. All we can do is see glimmers of it here and there, like lightning bugs on a summer night.