Subject: RE: [hackers-il] Monkey Trial

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:52:00 +0200

> Why? Every true thing can be proven, and every false thing can be
> disproved.

Considering the fact that the only logical way to declare a statement
true/false is by a proof - what you just said is a tautology.

Point is that there are things which can't be proven, therefore can't be
declared true or false.
You can create complete systems with or without them. 

And an offtopic rant about philosophers:

They understood the idea of logic - take axioms and derive a more complex
system from them.
What they didn't understand is the concept of reality. A so called
common-sense.
So they took some axioms (sometimes even remember to say what those axioms
are!) and derived a system, and pretended that this system has something to
do with the world.
So when xenon got his famous paradox he said "There's no motion", he didn't
say - something is wrong with my logic (in axioms or derivation).
When (Hegel?) said "There's no cause and effect" he didn't question his own
flow of logic, he chose to question the world. His axiom was that men only
have empirical data - and when it led him to an obviously wrong conclusion
he prefered his own conclusion to reality.

Why did obviously smart people chose to question reality and not their own
thinking? God knows :-)

Thanks,
C.S.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:45:37 +0300 (IDT)

> are!) and derived a system, and pretended that this system has something to

Ah-hah! here is the mistake in this approach: if you just throw some
axioms and try to derive some stuff for it, you'll probably end up with
something that contradicts objctive reality, or "common sense". The
philosophical system I am most familiar with, Objectivism, takes a
different approach:

As our axioms let's take the rules of logic, and deduce everything we need
from the basic facts we know about our human existence. Now, if you just
throw "Killing is wrong" as an axiom, that's not good because you didn't
deduce it from something more basic. But if you start from the basic facts
of existing and prove that claim (or actually a more accurate one), than
it's ok, because you know for certain that you are not going to contradict
reality.

Think about it. Throwing axioms is a bad idea (tm). Unless you're building
an abstract mathematical model (e.g: Graph Theory or Euclidean Geomtrey)
in which case you need to do that, so you'll have something to start  
deducing from.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked] 
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

The prefix "God Said" has the extraordinary logical property of 
converting any statement that follows it into a true one.

---

From: Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 17:30:02 +0300 (IDT)

> it's ok, because you know for certain that you are not going to contradict

What's reality? What you preceive with your senses? Why do you think
that the evidence you see is not self contradictary

> in which case you need to do that, so you'll have something to start  

But you don't have anything to start from. Decarte started by saying
he exists, and can doubt things. It would be great if the rest of his
philosophy just followed rules of logic. But Decarte got pretty much
all axioms you can really have: what can you be sure that exists, for
example? You know for a fact your senses can lie to you (because they
sometimes contradict themselves), so you can surely not give the evidence
of your senses to mean anything. 

(for anyone wondering, Decarte's fatal flaw was assuming an entity can be
created only by a superior entity. All else works flawlessly, so given
that, God exists, and what's more, we can trust our senses. Pity it
doesn't work)

--
Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
There is no IGLU cabal.
http://advogato.org/person/moshez