In 2019, for the first time the Kurt Gödel Circle of Friends Berlin, in partnership with the University of Wuppertal, has announced the Kurt Godel prize which aims “to promote anti-reductionist knowledge in the natural sciences and humanities”.

This first year, the jury received a plethora of submissions spanning 4 continents. The topic was focused on questions that reductionists would have to answer but cannot and why. The three best essays, which split a prize of €15,000 were:

  1. The limits of reductionism: thought, life, and reality by Jess Mulder
  2. Why reductionism does not work by George F R Ellis
  3. Monads, Types and Branching Time – Kurt Gödel’s approach towards a theory of the soul by Tim Lethen

These essays complement the Galileo Commission Report which itself explores the limitations of not only reductionism but of materialism as well.