QCD and Natural Philosophy

Abstract

QCD sheds considerable light on several of the most basic features of the natural world including the origin of mass, the feebleness of gravity, the extent to which the properties of matter can be determined conceptually, the possible utility of the anthropic principle, and the metatheoretic notions of effectiveness and computability. I discuss these applications here.

Comments: 18 pages; Plenary talk at TH2002, Paris, July 2002; minor typos corrected; email correspondence to wilczek@mit.edu