God's existence cannot be proven false. Since God is unfalsifiable by definition, being unfalsifiable is a property of God's existence. Since the statement God is unfalsifiable and cannot be disproven is accepted and supported by scientists and Atheists alike, then Occam's Razor shows the simplest explanation to be valid, since a defined and logical statement with scientific and academic consensus is more likely to be true than an argument against it.
Calculus cannot be proven to be false. Calculus doesn't wait for some physical evidence to appear and disprove it since Calculus is already logically defined. We can't prove Calculus exists as a physical thing, but we know Calculus is valid. Calculus uses self supporting axioms based on the unfalsifiable laws of logic, where abstract theorems do not require physical testability to be valid. There are many invalid proofs by amateurs who try to disprove Calculus based on a limited understanding of Calculus and a desire to prove Calculus wrong, yet it doesn't matter if you choose not to believe in Calculus or if you declare all of it invalid simply because you don't like it, as such arguments will not make mathematicians everywhere drop the study of Calculus because you don't think it has sound logic. No matter how you argue, Calculus cannot be falsified.
Replacing Calculus with God's existence shows the same properties and the same reasons why arguments against them do not work. Something can be both logically valid and non-falsifiable.
My proof is that if so many religions nowadays say they're right, how can any be right.
I'm agnostic. I believe no religion is right but i keep an open mind on the beginning of the universe.
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Anonymous2009-06-13 11:41
Mathfag here.
Reality guides the progress of Mathematics, but the math itself has no basis in reality. Calculus is simply a consequence of the axioms; a collection of theorems that describes the behavior of a large class of problems. Calculus doesn't really "exist", it's just that functions on real numbers happen to have some very nice properties.
Crackpots attempting to falsify Calculus is to be expected; the standard way introductory Calculus is taught is nonsense. You have to wait until you take a course on Real Analysis to anything rigorous.
Also, Occam's Razor is a nice heuristic, but is invalid in a logical argument. In fact, attempting to argue for or against the existence of God is meaningless unless you make more precise definitions. This holds even more if you're trying to make a tenuous link with Mathematics.
>Something can be both logically valid and non-falsifiable.
You're right, it can be verifiable. But if it can't be proven or disproven from a set of axioms, then there exist models of those axioms where it is true, and models where it is false.
And of course, "logically valid" is distinct from "true", "provable", or "sound".
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Anonymous2009-06-15 3:05
God's existence is false by its own definition. Everything that exists is define as being made of matter and energy, and if you ask any religious person, God is define as a non-empirical being, therefore saying god exists is like saying "that which is the opposite of existing exists" and boom, self explosions.
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Anonymous2009-06-15 15:34
>>4
I think cats have feathers. You think cats have fur. Doesn't make what I say true no matter how many times I say it. So, what have we learned? That some people can believe something that is true while other people are believing in something that is false.
>>6
Ideas can exist. Ghosts can exist. And so on. It doesn't have to be made of matter and/or energy.
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Anonymous2009-06-16 20:21
>>7
[quote]Ghosts can exist.[/quote]
Could you kindly present some proof of that assertion?
Also, thoughts/ideas can be explained in terms of signals in the brain (ie. consisting of something empirical) as well as in "non-physical" terms.
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Anonymous2009-06-16 21:41
>>6
Your argument:
If existence is defined as being made of matter and energy and if all gods are made of matter and energy, then no gods exist.
It's a meaningless tautology, and conveys nothing of importance. You might as well say "2 + 2 is not 4 since 4 is not made of matter or energy and hence does not exist".
>>4
Another worthless "proof". It is true that 2+2=4, almost by definition, yet I could probably find a hundred different people to say it's a hundred different things. Would you say "we can't reach a consensus on the value of 2+2 so no value is right or wrong"?
Too many people have a bad case of unwarranted self-importance. The truth of a statement does not depend on the number of people who agree with it, whether the opposite side is a bunch of hypocrites, whether you had traumatizing experiences and just "know" that it's true, whether it is provable, whether someone famous or really smart says it's true, whether anybody has even considered it yet, or whether humanity exists or not.*
* I know there are the trivial counterexamples. Certainly if you make the statement "Creationists and Atheists are all a bunch of hypocrites", then the truth of the statement actually does depend on whether or not they are hypocrites.
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Anonymous2009-06-18 13:08
Exactly.
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Anonymous2009-06-20 3:56
considering that all matter is made of energy, stating matter and energy is redundant. Amirite?
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Anonymous2009-06-21 0:10
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Anonymous2009-06-24 10:15
We can't prove Calculus exists as a physical thing, but we know Calculus is valid.
I know what it means for a particular deduction to be valid. I don't know what it means for calculus to be valid. I don't think you do, either.
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Anonymous2009-06-24 14:49
yeah I think he's confusing a model of reality for actual reality, common for students of mathematics
Calculus, like the rest of mathematics is falsifiable.
If the theory is inconsistent, it is false.
If the theory is true/complete/whatever, then we cannot know.
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Anonymous2009-06-30 6:14
>>16
Who says he is African? And who says he is American? I could've been referring to a Sand Nigger, a Southern African Termite Nigger, a Chigger Nigger etc. There are a variety of species of Nigger.
>>17
Not all theories that are consistent/complete fall under Gödel's Paradox. As exciting as his incompleteness theorem is, it's given far more importance than what it really says. As an example of one of the many pitfalls in applying it, it only applies to Omega-consistent systems. The real numbers fail this system. Hell, any system with an uncountable number of objects with fail this condition because any counterexamples might just happen to not be one of the countably many statements in the theory.
Also, Calculus as taught for the first time in most university curricula is complete nonsense. It is not rigorous, and isn't even falsifiable since many of its concepts are ill-defined. You have to wait until a proper Real Analysis course to get a decent proof.
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4tran2009-07-01 3:27
>>19
Very true. I was probably thinking of physics or something. countably many statements in the theory
How is this possible, if there are an infinite number of real numbers? "* is a real number" is an uncountable set of true statements in real analysis.
Intro calc is quite hand wavy, but why is it unfalsifiable? Example, please?
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Anonymous2009-07-01 21:36
>>19
what do you mean? I thought Godel's Theorem applied to any recursively defined collection of axioms that allowed us to formalize number theory. Calculus is usually built up using set theory, which certainly is subject to Godel's Theorem. Are you talking about axioms for the reals that don't let you talk about integers? >>20
Only countably many symbols are at our disposal to talk about analysis, and each statement is a finite string of these countably many symbols, hence countably many statements. In particular, there are only countably many real numbers that can be defined/referred to explicitly in a statement about real numbers; see also "computable number"
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Anonymous2009-07-02 1:19
>>21
Explicitly, Goedel's theorem says:
"Theorem VI. For every ω-consistent recursive class κ of FORMULAS there are recursive CLASS SIGNS r, such that neither v Gen r nor Neg(v Gen r) belongs to Flg(κ) (where v is the FREE VARIABLE of r)"
The common interpretation that "no system describing number theory can be both consistent and complete" is reasonably accurate when you're trying to understand what the theorem says. However, it's absolutely horrible if you're trying to apply it somewhere. Mathematical theorems are razor-sharp, and you shouldn't apply them in a more vague sense.
One of the conditions was ω-consistency of the system in question. A system is ω-inconsistent if for every formula A(x) such that A(n) is true for all natural numbers, the statement "for all x, A(x) is true" is false. A system is ω-consistent if it is not ω-inconsistent.
The natural numbers are certainly such a system, so Goedel's theorem applies. However, the real numbers fail this condition. For example, x^2 = 2 fails for every natural number, yet in the reals Sqrt(2) works. I can even weaken it to the rational numbers if I like: 2x = 3 fails for all natural numbers, but x = 3/2 is an object which satisfies it.
Goedel's theorem tells us that any system describing the natural numbers and *only* the natural numbers cannot be consistent and complete. It has no bearing on any sorts of weird(or straightforward) extensions of the naturals I might come up with.
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Economics2009-07-02 2:11
I got into an argument with a friend of mine lasting an hour without reaching a consent. I told him a story: "a russian goes into a hotel and leaves 100$ on the counter saying that he goes upstairs to see the rooms, and if he doesn't like the rooms he will come back and take his money back. The hotel owner comes after 1 minute, sees the money ant takes it, paying the meat distributor that supplied the hotel restaurant. The meat guy pays the animal food guy that pays for his whore. All with the same 100 bill. The whore then goes to the hotel and pays for her room with the 100 bill and leaves. The russian comes back down takes the money and leaves. And thus, nothing was lost, nothing was gained, but everybody paid their debts." My friend says no this is not true, that a debt was lost somewere, that the circle is not closed etc. Who is right??? with arguments please
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Anonymous2009-07-02 2:15
>>22
But Rosser's trick strengthens Godel's Theorem VI to encompass consistent (not just omega-consistent) theories. And the reals don't prove that there is a *natural number* such that x^2=2, which is a requirement for omega-inconsistency. And Godel's theorem DEFINITELY has a bearing on theories like ZFC. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? It might help if I knew what theory you're referring to as "the system of real numbers".
No debt is "lost". This is just a more complicated version of giving someone a $100 bill, watching him pass it round his back, then taking it again.
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Anonymous2009-07-02 18:53
>>23
nothing is lost, but nothing is gained (besides entropy), since everyone, although they acquired some service worth $100, also gave up some service worth the same amount. They might as well have just traded goods and services directly and the russian guy just kept his money (as he technically diddn't spend i).
On second thought, something is gained (only at the cost of entropy of the system increasing).
Now, one can argue that there was some net gain, because the people who provided each other goods and services, each of them wanted the other's good/service more than they minded providing theirs, so everyone ended up with more of what they wanted in the end, at the cost of entropy.
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Anonymous2009-07-03 11:37
Obviously taxes will reduce the amount of money. And tips. And paying for cigarettes and soda cans in the hallway. And pocketing the change.
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Anonymous2009-07-03 14:46
>>26
I find your reference to 'entropy' moot in this explanation.
It is true, however, that there is a price and a pleasure for every action. Knowing both and applying that knowledge is the definition of wisdom; but than again, you probably already knew that.
If I had to explain what really took place during the piss poor excuse of a 'Nothing lost, nothing gained' is fallacious to say the least. The apparent paradox of this small story is this, 'nothing ventured; nothing gained'. Since everyone involved endeavored in a venture, there was a gain. And this apathetic emotion about loosing money is a whiner's attitude to say the least. You don't give someone money for a service or to charity because it's good; you do it because it hurts. But than again, what is YOUR definition of the opposite of pain? If it's pleasure; I would find it interesting that you believe comfort (the lack of pain) to be pleasurable. That is the definition of decadence. Seeking pleasure while escaping pain. And this is just pathetic. Of course, I'm also a liar so whatever you want or don't want to read into this is entirely your decision. And you will decide. You have no choice in that matter. Rest assured.
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Anonymous2009-07-03 22:18
it's hard for me to see what the point of your post is or what your rebuttal is because your post appears to be mired in pseudo-intellectual banter. Also, if you pounded that comment out before your read my entire comment, you would realize I agreed something was gained in terms of services and fulfilling human desires.
first off: If I had to explain what really took place during the piss poor excuse of a 'Nothing lost, nothing gained' is fallacious to say the least.
is that a single sentence? you'll have to run that by me again.
Speaking in physical terms, there was no net loss or gain, with the exception of time and energy. This is obvious. In terms of services exchanged, like i said, there was some gain. Still, I disagree with the logic of many parts of your comment.
You don't give someone money for a service or to charity because it's good; you do it because it hurts.
yeah, that's exactly why currency was invented, because we all want pain for our services.
Now let me explain how money really works:
Before money, humans traded services directly. The problem with this system is whenever someone has some good/service you desire, there needs to be a coincidence of wants, where you have exactly what the other party needs in exchange for the item you want, and you have to agree what they want from you is worth exactly what you want from them. Money circumvents the 'coincidence of wants' prerequisite to trading by having everyone in a society agree that cash is innately valuable such that it can be traded for any item, and is thus always desired (not to mention, easily quantified and divided). So for all intents and purposes, we can treat cash traded as service traded (proportionate to the quantity of cash).
In terms of services traded, there was net gain overall, as all parties lost a service they personally believed was worth less than the service they gained (otherwise, they wouldn't have made the trade one would assume).
Next point: The opposite of pain is pleasure, this is fucking obvious. I don't define lack of pain to be pleasurable (necessarily). Pleasure is sensation one tends to seek. Pain is sensation one tends to be averse to. The meat guy may not want to do $100 worth of work, because humans tend to desire to conserve energy, so the sensation of doing work is likely "painful" for him. However, he knows that with the $100 he gets from his services, he can pay for his whore, who will impart sexual pleasure onto him, a sensation humans tend to seek.
so whatever you want or don't want to read into this
i don't really care, i'm on this science and math board because I want to analyze the logic and reason and truth values of statements made here, I don't care about the character of my opponent (unless he is asking me to habeeb it).
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Anonymous2009-07-04 4:45
>>Since God is unfalsifiable by definition, being unfalsifiable is a property of God's existence.
God is unlovable, too. To honestly love someone, you must know them. Since we cannot know God, God is unlovable.
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Anonymous2009-07-04 6:12
>>30
To be frank...I don't think it is possible to truly know someone. For me, to love someone is to see all their faults, but still love them even though they are wrong. In doing this, they become right because I allow them to be so. That makes me God in their eyes, ergo, they will love me because I have loved them. The law of return fellas, learn it, live it, love it. Don't do it because it's good and it's right; do it because it hurts. Pain makes the senses grow stronger, or haven't you figured that out already. Self-AWARENESS.....-_-'
>>5
This guy has a point. OP's initial post of "Of course God is unfalsifiable." is slightly incorrect. God is Undefinable; without definition there can be no distinguishing differences, no comparisons, no idea where to even start when identifying God because God has no distinct identity to that which is ABSOLUTE, and moreover ABSOLUTELY known to be true. Each human being can only know of God from their own point of views, their own beliefs, their own perceptions -albeit imaginary at times with some reality as a "PROVE-ALL" (considering all things imaginary are based entirely from all perceivable reality)- and therefore the only way to solve this problem is this simple logical argument;
1) Do you know of the word, "GOD?"
2) Do you have this word on your mind at least once a day?
3) Does this word affect your emotions positively/negatively at any given time of day?
If any of these, or all of these are a resounding yes; CONGRATULATIONS!!!