Posted By:
Lord Lucan
in somewhere strange Jan 12, 2005
Think and Reason is offering $1,000,000 if you can prove that God exists. There are conditions attached. But they do say: "All you have to do is prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God exists. It is really that easy!"
Is there really this money sitting waiting?
Supposing I said I was God - and prove I exist (should be easy) - is the money mine?
Oh and by the way, "2+2=4 is the bedrock that maths is based on. "definitions,functions and rules of mathematics" come AFTER that, not before it so your talking a nonsense and I don't like having to respond to quickly googled, coped and pasted replies that 'seem' to fit the subject they can't even spell.
samba Member
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 | 12:31 AM
Ok, demonstrate for us then how the equation can be applied without assigning specific quantities to the numerals,and functions to the = and + signs?
I never thought I'd see the day when this thread would get sidetracked into a mathematical discussion.
samba Member
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 | 07:06 PM
How is discussion of the nature and possibility of logical proof a sidetrack to a discussion of the possibility of proving the existence ,or nonexistance of a creator deity?
Speaking from experience, logic means nothing to a true believer. After all, logically nothing they say makes any sense. Every great once in a while you will actually come across a believer who admits that's it's completely a matter of faith and nothing more, but most people who argue 'logically' for the existence of God simply reiterate the same nonsense they've been taught all their lives without ever actually thinking about it or addressing any issues you raise against it. Eventually they call you close-minded and leave.
David B. Member
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 | 06:37 AM
"Ok, demonstrate for us then how the equation can be applied without assigning specific quantities to the numerals,and functions to the = and + signs?"
This has already been done, In Russell and Whitehead's 3-volume work on the symbolic logic of mathematics, Pricipia Mathematica.
They demonstrated that many of the 'axioms' of mathematics can be derived from pure logic. By the middle of volume 2 they proved that 1+2=2 was logically true, rather than empirically true as had been thought.
Now stop disobeying God.
samba
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 | 12:09 PM
To change symbol sets from mathmatical ones to those of symbolic logic doesn't answer -same wine ,new bottles. The question about equations was related to a response to my assertion that Goedel showed the members of a set can't prove the validity of the set.The person I was responding to was ironic enough to state,'Goedel proved that you can't prove anything'.
The menu is not the meal.Representational systms ,models etc are artifacts of human imagination. as for 'Disobeying God" Your implication is lost on me-you may be imagining you know what I do and don't think. You might be mistaken.
The page you linked includes the following section
"The questions remained
* whether a contradiction could be derived from the Principia's axioms (the question of inconsistency), and
* whether there exists a mathematical statement which could neither be proven nor disproven in the system (the question of completeness).
Propositional logic itself was known to be both consistent and complete, but the same had not been established for Principia's axioms of set theory. (See Hilbert's second problem.)"
Gödel's incompleteness theorems cast unexpected light on these two related questions.
Gödel's first incompleteness theorem showed that Principia could not be both consistent and complete. According to the theorem, for every sufficiently powerful logical system (such as Principia), there exists a statement G that essentially reads, "The statement G cannot be proved." Such a statement is a sort of Catch-22: if G is provable, then it's false, and the system is therefore inconsistent; and if G is not provable, then it's true, and the system is therefore incomplete.
Gödel's second incompleteness theorem shows that no formal system extending basic arithmetic can be used to prove its own consistency. Thus, the statement "there are no contradictions in the Principia system" cannot be proven true or false in the Principia system unless there are contradictions in the system (in which case it can be proven both true and false).[citation needed]
[edit]
Lebbell
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 | 01:27 PM
Watch my lips:
God cannot be proved or disapproved. No 'irony' there[?]
That has been my consistent theme. I am only on this thread, not to prove God's existence [a silly notion], but to take issue with preaching atheists who claim God doesn't or can't exist, which like religious faith is no more, and can never be more, than a belief system. Anything Else is a claim of infallibility.
Claims of Infallibility belong only to the delusional. The atheist and religious alike.
samba
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 | 02:20 PM
The Irony was stating proof of the impossibility of proof
"Goedel.. mathematically proved that no ultimate 'truth' can be proved."
I probably agree with your real point. I doubt God can be proved,and I observe many people who style themselves skeptics and rationalists are trying to prove the beleif that there can't be anything 'supernatural'.and the belief that scientific rationality is the only way to derive Truth.This also seems like an unprovable belief based on an act of faith. This act of faith depends in part on the beleif that what is consistent is real. This fetish for consistency seems to me a projection of the survival imperative.Because we are organisms that can only exist in a narrow bandwidth of temp,atmosphere,gravity,etc consistency matters alot. But it's a jump to assume that fundamental truth ,the nature of existence,reality,cosmos,universe reality,the original cause ,whatever you want call it is consistent and aprehendable,measurable as such. It's just another belief system,also known as BS Models aren't real ,they are representations of reality. But people who are caught in their BS can't distinguish the menu from the meal. There is a lot of what I call Modelotry,the worshipping,or fetishizing of models. (There are schools of thought-Taoism for instance that treat the random, the unpredictable, chance as the crucial element. Now that MRIs have been used to observe brain responses in trained meditators supposedly having transcendent experiences,some are saying this proves these experiences originate in the brain.Funny no one says that about other expereices whose brain patterns MRIs will register,say playing chess, or doing math,filling out tax forms.)
For logic to work there must be complete data,if the data are not complete any conclusion is premature. I think it highly unlikely that anyone has enough data to draw a logical conclusion about what is ,and is not possible.provisionla conjecture based on current data seems to me a sensible approach.Conclusions drawn from incoplete data are,froma strictoy logical perspective, statements of belief.
Lebbell
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 | 07:28 PM
For non-believers in God, agnostics get it about right [no belief, for or against, required] and for believers, a dose of doubt doesn't do any harm either and some religious texts encourage it.
Belief in infallibility is a dangerous thing, whether coming from form atheists or believers.
samba
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 | 08:48 PM
Yes agnostics recognize that they don't know. There also seem to be believers who have no inner experience of gnosis,perhaps leading to all sorts of dogmatic,doctrinal foolishness.
David B. Member
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 | 02:39 PM
samba wrote: "To change symbol sets from mathmatical ones to those of symbolic logic doesn't answer -same wine ,new bottles."
No, logic is different to mathematics, as your own post acknowledges.
"Propositional logic itself was known to be both consistent and complete, but the same had not been established for Principia's axioms of set theory. [...] Gödel's first incompleteness theorem showed that Principia could not be both consistent and complete."
You can prove mathematics (or rather a finite sub-set of it) in terms of logic, and you can prove logic is both consistent and complete, with logic.
Basically, Godel's result showed that there are an infinite number of mathematical axioms. For any set of axioms (G), it is possible to derive from them a proposition 'g' that is formally undecidable within (G). What P.M. achieved was to derive many known axioms of mathematics from logic alone. One of these axioms was that 1+1=2, I'm sure if you ask a mathematician nicely, he'll show you how to get from there to 2+2=4.
David B. Member
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 | 02:55 PM
I'm not sure that any atheist here believes in their own infallibility, or in the a=infallibility of science come to that. It only takes to page 2 of this topic before one of us points this out.
Given the nature of the topic, it is natural that it would consist more of people advancing 'proofs' of God, and getting roundly rubbished, than advancing proofs of no God; I'm not sure anyone has even tried to show there is no God here. If you know different, please point it out.
Most, if not all, atheists will accept that it is not possible to prove that God doesn't exist, but that is hardly the point. There are a multitude of gods you can't prove don't exist, and it is not possible to believe in all of them. I start from a default position that I require evidence before I believe something, and there is no evidence for any god, therefore I don't believe in gods. I don't have some magical, private proof that gods do not exist, nor am I undecided on the issue.
I don't believe in one more god than you don't believe in, because I have no evidence of any god.
samba
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 | 05:09 PM
Fair enough but how do you decide what constitutes evidence. How do you know there IS NO evidence? I'm not out to prove you wrong per se,these are epistemelogical,not rhetorical questions.But you seem to be expressing a belief,unless of course you can back it up with data,peer reviewed scientific tests etc.The statement "there is no evidence'is anecdotal not,in classical logic, a sound premise,unless you can prove it.The statement may or may not be true,how can we know?
Atheism is ,by definition, opposition to the notion of deity. Which apears to be the position of one claiming to know what is true and what's not.
My own position ,if I have no evidence on a topic, is that I don't know.
"I start from a default position that I
require evidence before I believe something, and there is no evidence for
any god'"
samba
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 | 05:39 PM
Fair enough,but how do you decide what constitutes evidence? How do you know there "IS NO evidence"? If you treat these as epistemelogical ,not rhetorical questions,something interesting might acrue.
You seem to be expressing a belief,unless you can back it up. The statement "there is no evidence" is anecdotal ,not a sound premise in classical logic,unless you can prove it. The statement ,may or may not be true,how can we know?
Atheism ,by definition describes opposition to the notion of deity.The OED defines it as :"Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god."
This seems to be the position of one who belives he or she knows what is or isn't true. I would describe this is also as a belief.
My own position, when I have no evidence on a topic,is that I don't know.
"I start from a default position that I
require evidence before I believe something, and there is no evidence for
any god, therefore I don't believe in gods."
akabilk@internode.on.net
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 | 07:31 PM
An Atheist affirms the nonexistence of God, or in other words: "there is no God". The problem here for the atheist [not the agnostic] is the assertion is indefensible. They would have to be omnipresent to believe such a claim.
Similar mindsets once proclaimed 'the earth is flat'.
PS. In an earlier post I said 2+2=4 was a maths axiom. I don't know what I was thinking of, but I of course meant 1+1=2 !
samba
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 | 08:33 PM
The context was about the possibility of proving anything. My assertion was meant to convey that if you define your terms you can prove things within a given set, but not beyond,which led to this:
"2+2=4 is the bedrock that maths is based on. "definitions,functions and rules of mathematics" come AFTER that, not before"
I assumed ,and the writer now confirms s/he meant 1+1=2
I see this as provabe,within in the context of the math game, given agreed upon definitions for the symbols 2,+,4,and = .You could put this into symbolic,or propositional logic and the issue would still be the same, I disagree with the idea that the equation comes before the definitions of it's parts, if they are defined there can be proof within the established rules of the game,and not beyond
There is only one aspect of Goedel's stuff I grasp clearly ( it was a mistake for me to drag him into this since I know so very little math),and that is the members of a set work within the set but can't validate it beyond the set.I think that holds true for symbolic logical or mathmatical sets,or,grammar,or ,musical scores,aesthetic systems etc..
David B. Member
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 | 08:36 AM
samba wrote: "There is only one aspect of Goedel's stuff I grasp clearly ( it was a mistake for me to drag him into this since I know so very little math),and that is the members of a set work within the set but can't validate it beyond the set."
Er, are you sure you are not referring to Zermelo-Franke set theory (ZF for short)? This is an axiomatic set theory that prohibits the kind of self-reference that Godel used to show incompleteness, but because of this, cannot be shown to be consistent.
I'd also read up on PM, as the whole point of the three volume work was to demonstrate mathematical axioms like 1+1=2 from logic (which is complete and consistent) rather than just 'assume' them.
akabilk wrote: "An Atheist affirms the nonexistence of God, or in other words: "there is no God". The problem here for the atheist [not the agnostic] is the assertion is indefensible. They would have to be omnipresent to believe such a claim."
So are you agnostic on the existence of all other gods but yours? Or what about psychics, ghosts, fairies, elves, orcs, dragons, cylons, daleks, cybermen, eddorans, vulcans, klingons, and good-hearted lawyers?
An athiest such as myself, might admit the possibility of gods, but then there is a non-zero possibility of everything; you have to filter. My filter is that stuff that can't be at least semi-reliably demonstrated to have the effects expected of it, isn't worth wasting time on. I can't prove there isn't a miracle cure for all bodily ills either, but I don't go around recklessly endangering my health just because one might exist.
Sherlock Holmes, real or not? Please give absolute proof, remember to show your working out.
Lebbell/akabilk
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 | 12:24 PM
David B wrote:
"So are you agnostic on the existence of all other gods but yours? Or what about psychics, ghosts, fairies, elves, orcs, dragons, cylons, daleks, cybermen, eddorans, vulcans, klingons, and good-hearted lawyers?"
Yes too all of the above [who knows?], but that doesn't mean I waste my time on them either. A kind-hearted Lawyer though is an oxymoron!
samba
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 | 12:36 PM
Thanks for the reccomedations.
Are you aware that Whitehead ,the co-author of PM seemed to view consciousness, as fundamental rather than epiphenomanal? He also is said to have embraced Pantheism,the notion that what is called god is the whole of what exists,and beyond.He spoke of universe being an experiential process not an object ,or thing. I put it: There's no such thing as thing.
I have been making observations I think are germaine to the discussion of the possibility of proving god exists.I don't think it can be proved or disproved by symbol manipulation.
I do think that atheism is a belief system,that those professing atheism should acknowledge this, even if only to themselves.
I take no issue with your position: "stuff that can't be at least semi-reliably demonstrated to
have the effects expected of it, isn't worth wasting time on" It's a personal choice about how you use your time-quite reasonable.In terms of so called objective Truth the sticky point is "effects expected".
I'm inclined to the view that consciousness is the sea of potential from which all phenomena arise. If someone wants to label this emergent process God,or Quantum Interconnectedness( considered proven by Bell's theorem),matters not to me.
I do sometimes find arguments about intellectual category systems,and superficial identifications amusing. I also find it tragic that such things are such effective blocks to communication as to contribute to wars.
