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Mathematical Proofs are just that! Proofs!

#11
Ostronomos Offline
(Nov 17, 2017 03:33 AM)Yazata Wrote:
(Nov 16, 2017 10:41 PM)Ostronomos Wrote:
(Nov 15, 2017 09:33 PM)Yazata Wrote: What formal proofs demonstrate are some of the logical implications of an initial set of premises.

The conclusion of a formal proof needn't be true, unless the original premises were.

Thank you for that insightful and eye opening response.

Anything to help, Ostro.  Big Grin

Here's an example:

1. (Premise) If Emmanuel Macron is President of France, then Madrid is the capital of France.

2. (Premise) Emmanuel Macron is President of France

Therefore

3. (Conclusion) Madrid is the capital of France

The proof is entirely valid (an example of modus ponens) but the conclusion is obviously false.

That's because premise #1 is false (even if #2 is true).

The moral of the story is that just because somebody produces what they insist is a logical or mathematical "proof" of something, doesn't necessarily make the conclusion true. The proof might be invalid (it might contain a logical error somewhere) or the initial premises of the argument might not all be true.

This by no means implies that God is among those hypothetical or fictional entities. Rather, your moral can be taken as true at face value. You see, God possesses reality based properties that correspond to reality. Such as invisibility and universality.
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#12
Zinjanthropos Offline
Quote:You see, God possesses reality based properties that correspond to reality. Such as invisibility and universality.

I think a little more math is required here. 

Maybe I missed a few but I see 7 conclusions in those two lines.... 

The following statement is true(as in 'you see'), there's a god, the god possesses reality based properties, the properties correspond to reality, one property is invisibility, the properties are universal, and there's more properties.. Also insinuates there are non reality based properties and not all properties correspond to reality. Then we are left to ponder about what other properties there may be and the status of invisibility and universality when they're not corresponding.
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#13
C C Offline
(Nov 15, 2017 07:41 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: Whether a proof of God or a proof of global warming, mathematics has an inherent truth to it.


If mathematics could prove God, the latter would be stuck as a member of that abstract system, not validated as resident of either nature or a "real" transcendent level. Mathematics contributes as a tool in describing / predicting aspects of global warming (the latter concerns an observable / detectable atmospheric environment rather than a hidden entity).

Rumor has it that we don't have any absolutely true premises (what is immutable or impervious to context and relationships). Except those which we preconditionally limit in meaning and define to be true as the axioms / primary components of an artificial system divorced from the affairs of the contingent world.

Donald E. Simanek: The bottom line is that logic alone can tell us nothing new about the real world. Ditto for mathematics, as Albert Einstein observed: "Insofar as mathematics is exact, it does not apply to reality; and insofar as mathematics applies to reality, it is not exact."

Quantitative concepts like "5" actually were originally abstracted from experience. But the variable, specific phenomenal content like apples, pebbles, fingers, etc in a group or set was stripped away to leave only the generic property of five represented by the symbol. It is not a given that [all] complex mathematical constructs created in much later generations of history will eventually correspond to material circumstances or have a tool-like role in physics. Though they fell out of and can be coherent with the most ancestral / basic concepts and rules which could have (i.e., their "proof" via those premises or in being demonstrated to belong to / being commensurable with the overall framework).

God is a bit like those later constructs. An abstract placeholder like "God" has no truly empirical counterpart(s) for its origin. That a parent or monarch role might have inspired the idea doesn't equate since those have very limited domains which they exercise reign over, rather than the whole universe. There's neither a single concrete object nor multiple, variable objects in experience that can satisfy a "real" provenance for the concept of God to be abstracted from (in terms of a total account of the latter's ascribed properties).

That the universe itself as a whole might be deemed an apparent source for God would be a trivial hypothesis. Since it seems to add little information wise -- one name or word is merely substituted for another. As well as it being an errant association since the universe lacks personhood.

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