RIght Cecil. The point of that little theoretical setup was just to show that even if you have a true "falsity," that doesn't necessarily mean you can say what the truth about the situation really is.

So you agree that this statement is not true for every case? I was trying to illustrate that the quote above is not true.

Perhaps, but perhaps not also. What then, is the cause of gravity? Two objects having mass, you might say. Well, what is the cause of mass? And if mass has a cause, what is the cause of that? And so on, to infinity. Does the link truly go on to infinity, or is there something that just is? The jury is out on this one until we observe every effect and determine whether it has a cause or not.

If all we can say about a thing is "something happened" then that's not much truth about anything. If a teacher catches you cheating on a test and asks what you're doing, and you reply "something," well, that doesn't imply anything about what is actually happening. I hope you see my point?

I agree, and I see what you are saying.

But if you know that "something" happened, then that is still a truth, but as you noted not a very broad one. The opposite of which would be, nothing happened. To say that A isn't B, then you have to know what B is in order to know that A isn't B.

So if you know with certainty that there is no light exiting the box, then you have to know with certainty that you are using your tool correctly, and that your tool works correctly.

If you know with certainty that there is no light being detected exiting the box, you still have to know that you are "reading" your tool correctly.

If you are going to know a false with certainty, there will always be a truth that you know as well.

There still is no in-between option between true and false. If you know that something is false, then you by default also know what the truth is corresponding to that false.

Perhaps I was ambiguous as to my meaning. By "doesn't necessarily mean" I didn't mean to imply there was an in-between, just that you either can or can't say what the truth of the situation is. I am also curious as to your meaning. If I were to say "there is no light coming through the side of the box" from the prior situation, what would be the corresponding truth to that?

This, I actually have no idea as to whether or not it is actually true, because I haven't seen every possible case where a falsity can exist. It does seem reasonable that there should be some basis established by which to conduct the verification of truths and falses which must necessarily itself either be true or false so as to judge the situation at hand, but the notion of knowing a false without such a basis is not completely alien or unthinkable. I see that I should limit the bounds of the point I was making to knowing a truth about the situation at hand though, because of the assumptions like the measuring tools working correctly.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 10 2009, 6:55 am by Vrael. Reason: fixed quotes

Well with all things, even with math, we take a set of assumptions and draw conclusions from that. There's always some assumptions that people take.

Even logic is built on a set of axioms.

Is there is such thing as absolute truth or not? It's impossible for us to tell. I don't really care what the case is tbh.

The way people settle on what they believe and what they don't believe if whether they think that there's a good amount of evidence in their favor or not. The problem is that different people value different evidence differently. For instance some people feel that there exists some sort of divine purpose in their life because they "feel like they're here for a reason." If you consider that enough evidence than sure, that's your choice.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 15 2009, 4:41 am by scwizard.

Please excuse me for reverting, but allow me to argue a point.

Mathematics states true statements about axioms when performed properly. The "trustworthiness" of the axiom is up for debate, BUT mathematics can create an absolute truth about the axiom.

For example... Here is an independent axiom:

That is the statement that may or may not be true.
Despite its validity, here is a conclusion that is true about the statement:

Midget, in the future please read the entire topic, or at the very least skim it so you know which topics have been touched upon. The truths of mathematics have already been discussed and if you wished to continue that discussion it would have been prudent to take a quote from the earlier discussion rather than simply posting over what has already been said, with nothing new to relate to the prior discussion.

If you wish to continue this part of the discussion feel free, but beef up your post and relate it to what's already been said, or how it's new.

I skimmed the whole article then zeroed in on the mathematics before i decided to make my post. In my post i acknowledge this.


I think that what i said pertaining to mathematics was not considered nor stated.

Also, i feel that it directly correlated with post #64 because he said that


I decided to expand on his notion, because i admired its legitimacy, and represent this mathematically.

@Midget.

If 2 is defined to be 2, and 1 is defined to be one, and the operation symbols for addition and equality are + and = respectively, and if addition and equality are defined as we define them, then 1 + 1 = 2. Math may be incredibly useful and strongly correlated to the universe, but nothing you can do makes it more than an invention. If my fictional character Gandalf has a white beard, "Gandalf has a white beard" is far from absolute truth. In fact, saying that the fictional character that I invented named Gandalf has a white beard isn't true either, since other people may have differing definitions of Gandalf, or I might even by lying about him having a white beard. Even worse, I may not actually exist, so to say that I even invented a fictional charater can't be absolute truth either, because the only person it's true for is me. And yes, for those of you who may have missed the boat, Gandalf and his beard are just an analogy for mathematical axioms based on definitions. We may discover more things based on these axioms, like "Gandalf is old because he has a white beard," but the root of all mathematics is based on our definitions.

Well, I think a point could be made for the quantity we know as "2" being represented rather than defined, or perhaps discovered rather than defined. For example, if no one were around to define "2" as the quantity we know it to be, equations like 1+1=2 would still hold true. (on a side note: If a tree falls in a forest and nothing's around to hear it, does it make a sound? or, If one stone drops into a bucket and another stone drops into a bucket and no one's around to count them, do they still make two?) They may not be man-made inventions, but rather natural properties of the universe we live in. A better example might be a formula like the quadratic equation, "-b/2a +/- sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)/2a" You can't simply define this formula, else I could just define anything to be the quadratic formula so long as I had a representative system that it worked in. Rather, it was discovered to hold true, then proven that it works. I think the statement "but the root of all mathematics is based on our definitions" is largely false as well. Consider if someone highly influential like Newton or l'Hopital had never lived. Maybe we wouldn't know about integration, but it would still work just as they had discovered (if aliens knew how to integrate or something and could verify it for us). I think the point here is that definitions aren't really the case, because for something like "2" it doesn't matter how you map the idea to the representation, so long as you do it consistently.

I think this illustrates what I mean:
If we map
1--> x
2--> B
3--> j
Then naturally
x + B = j
So, here we have a basic set of definitions, but I believe there is a missing link here, that would look something like this:
"the quantity we know as 1"--> 1--> x
"the quantity we know as 2"--> 2--> B
"the quantity we know as 3"--> 3--> j
So saying "1+2=3" is just as valid as saying "x+B=j" so long as the representations are mapped correctly, so it isn't really the "definitions" or "mapping" that is the root of mathematics here as they are arbitrary, but these independant concepts that we can only represent, which forms the basis for our mathmatics.

Relating this back to absolute knowledge is where it becomes difficult. What requirements do we need to fulfill for 1+1=2 to be absolute knowledge? I'm really not sure myself, perhaps you guys have some ideas on the matter (lol probably JaBoK, you seem to be pretty keen on this sort of thing).

Well the key is that in defining basic axioms, you define everything that can be discovered from them, though you may not know it at the time. The problem is that in your example, you use the definition of one to get to x, and so on. That being said, calculus was also an invention, as several definitions were made to support it, such as the idea of a limit. You could argue that the laws are intuitive and axiomatic, but the problem with requiring definitions can't be solved through any means I know of. Sure, if we hadn't discovered some element of math it would still exist, but it would do so because it was defined to be that way, even if we do not know all the implications of our definitions.

Anyways, as to your question.

Definitions of 1, 2 are requried, as are addition and equality. The group "numbers" must be defined as the group that contains the operation "addition" with an additive identity of zero, simply meaning that a number plus its opposite is zero. In simple terms, every symbol is defined.

ok to vrael 2+2=0

heres the proof x=1. therefore the derivative of x= the deraviative of 1. d/dx (x)= d/dx (1)
d/dx (x) = 1 and d/dx (1) = 0 therefore 1=0

1+1= 2 therefore 0+0= 2 therefore 2=0 whcih results in 2+2= 0

booyah!

as for other things. Truth is relative. I'll compose an example. Person A sits on a chair facing Person B and person B is also facing person A in another chair. Two observers C and D observe them from opposite sides as such C=D the equals sign being the A and B facing each other.

To A, B is neither on his right or his left. To B, A is neither on his right or his left. To C, A is on the right and B is on the left. To D, B is on the right and A is on the left. To us C is on the Left and D is on the right.

What is the truth? One can only tell from his or her perspective. There is no absolute truth that holds true for everyone.

x' = 1
This derivative implies that there is change in x. This is impossible if x is always equal to 1.
Since x is always equal to 1, there is no change in x, therefore x' = 0. x is a constant, and the derivative of a constant is 0. Your derivative is treating x as if it were an independent variable. This would be correct if x were an independent variable of another function (for instance, y). Then you can state that y = x and that y' = x' = 1. In this example, x is a constant and x is not an independent variable here because it is always 1.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 26 2009, 6:58 am by Mini Moose 2707.

Everyone dies.

There has never been an observed occurance of someone not dying, though there are many cases of not dead people, statistically it is certain that we are all going to die, in much the same manner that everyone currently living has been born. Just because you are living now does not necessarily mean that you had to have been born, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to die, but if you want to try and prove that someone's going to live forever, be my guest. I may not be able to say in the strictest terms that "everyone dies" is an absolute, but you also can't say that it isn't an absolute. For one thing, there's no statistical data to support that conclusion, and secondly, there's no way to disprove it until someone doesn't die.

This really brings us back to the question I asked in the beginning of the topic "does it matter if we can know something absolutely?" For me, billions of dead people is enough to label the conclusion "everyone dies" as absolute.

As for your mathematical nonsense, basically what Moose said

As he said, 'x' is not a variable in this case, so when you went and said "d/dx (x) = 1" that was a false statement. I could go on about examining what a derivative actually is and all, but I think Moose probably says it better (and no one wants to hear me ramble on about things you may already know).

There are however, still truths to be found. From any reference frame, the distances between them all will be the same, the angles, and the position with respect to the world around them. You simply picked a property which is relative to the frame of reference, and not one of the numerous properties which are the same from any frame of reference.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 26 2009, 7:44 am by Vrael.

There's loads of things.
I don' tknow why it got deleted but: 1 = 1

Furthermore:
Every blind person cannot see.
Every deaf person cannot hear.
The species homo sapiens cannot fly without apparatus.
Gravity cannot be negated, only out-forced.
Death is permanent.
Water cannot be compressed in liquid form.
A liquid will assume the shape of it's container.
You cannot exceed the speed of light in a vacuum.
Fire requires heat, fuel and oxygen.
Arsenic is poisonous to humans.

It's endless, there are absolute truths.

This is an inductive argument. Inductive arguments can be cogent (and this one is very much so), but never binding (as a deductive argument is). IE, the conclusion of an inductive argument can not be made with absolute certainty. It is still subject to the Problem of Induction.

Depends on your definition of death. People are brought back to life all the time.

It was deleted because you offered a trivial claim with no effort put into explaining it, no substance to back it up, and no argument for how it relates to this discussion. Attempts without sufficient justification to put an end to the discussion because of claims of superior knowledge will be deleted as violations of the following rules:

The rest of your "truths" are subject to the same fallacies that my "Everyone dies" is subject to. As Moose said, the arguments for them are inductive. That the laws of nature hold true today do not make it certain that they will hold true tomorrow, or likwise that the sun rises today does not make it certain that the sun will rise again tomorrow, only more likely. Some of your "truths", like "Every blind person cannot see" are simply the results of definitions, and not truths themselves. Every blind person cannot see, because if they could see they would not be called "blind". Another example of this is "All bachelors are unmarried" which is true, but only because of the definition of "bachelor" "Water cannot be compressed in its liquid form" is downright wrong, and the rest are subject to Moose's post above.

Unfortunately it seems that if inductive reasoning cannot be held to be valid, neither can deductive reasoning, in the universal sense, since any premise required for deductive reasoning is going to be a result of observations or inductive reasoning, and any axioms are nothing but assumptions which also have inductive properties (unless you guys can think of something that is true but not an axiom, or does not rely on axioms). Relating this back to the topic at hand, it doesn't look good for absolute truth.

At the junction of no absolute truth, I think most people (well, at least myself) would invoke some common sense and say "well that's bullshit" though, even if we can't show in a purely logical way that absolute truth exists. I think Hume touched on this in one of his books, that a purely logical person would starve because he can't rely on inductive reasoning to show that food will satiate his hunger. If we can't have absolute truth, then we might as well rely on methods like axioms and inductive reasoning, since they seem to be working out pretty well for us so far, and just because we can't prove them absolutely true doesn't mean that they aren't absolutely true, it just means that we can't be 100% certain as to their absolute truth.


This is really just a trivial definition discrepancy though, we could easily and reasonably tweak the definition of death to conform to permanency. Since time isn't really a factor, you could just tweak it like "only people who have remained dead for more than a year are suject to "Death"" or something simple like that, or just say what I said "Everyone dies"

Furthermore:
Every blind person cannot see.
some blind people can regain site therefore they can see.

Every deaf person cannot hear.
not true only completely deaf people cant hear. This is why we have hearing aids to boost the sound.

The species homo sapiens cannot fly without apparatus.
this may be true for now but it wont always be true. Eventually we will move further into genetics and one day i'm sure some morron is gona buy him self a pair of genetic wings.

Gravity cannot be negated, only out-forced.
oh really? what about anti gravity?

Death is permanent.
yea if you say so. Noone knows what happens after you die. That tis why we have all these retarded religions. Even then it depends on your definatition of life and death. To me being alive means your making your mark on the world after all what is there to do in life beyond this. Which means some people will never die.

Water cannot be compressed in liquid form.
explain more don't quite understand.

A liquid will assume the shape of it's container.
No actually it assumes the shape of something slightly smaller than its container and if the container isn't full it won't assume the container's shape anyhow becuase it cannot expand to fill the empty space. a set volume will still be the same volume if kept in the same state (ex liquid, gas,ect).

You cannot exceed the speed of light in a vacuum.
speed is relative. you can potentially travel across great distances and arrive there before the light from where you were will. I would say that makes you faster than light. Regardless i want you to prove to me you can't go faster than light. Just because we humans don't know how to doesn't me we won't one day. Btw einstein may be wrong. We always knew the world was flat then one day we knew it was round. We always knew the earth was the center of the universe and then one day we knew it wasn't

Fire requires heat, fuel and oxygen.
O really then how do torches burn underwater?

Arsenic is poisonous to humans.
Depends on the quantity. It won't take much but there is a quantity that will do very little if nothing to you.

and to vrael about death: just because we have always died doesn't mean we always will. In fact there is a person right now becoming a cyborg. With his conciousness eventually ending up in a machine he will technically live forever. Beyond this is chryogenics which can keep one alive for a long long time.

oh and btw i knew my math was nonsense just wanted to see if you guys would catch it. At least i gave it a shot a trying to prove it wasn't 4 unlike some people. I'm sure if i wanted to i could find more ways of saying that it wasn't equal to 4 and eventually you wouldn't be able to disprove me unless i told you how to disprove me.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 27 2009, 6:21 pm by Dapperdan. Reason: not sd worthy

Citations please.

In the future, do not attack religion directly without sufficient justification. It is undoubtedly one of the most controversial aspects of human civilization, and should be treated with care. This is not the discussion to be calling religion "retarded", even if you believe it is so. Secondly, it does not depend on your definition of life and death, it depends on the concepts which you are talking about. "Making your mark on the world" and biological "life" are two separate concepts and should be treated as such.

Not if Einstein was right. See this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

You can't accelerate mass to the speed of light, because doing so requires infinite amount of energy. Because of the energy, a person may not accelerate to the speed of light. However, it it were possible to change velocities without accelerating, it might be possible, and the article above from wikipedia mentions some galaxies moving "faster than light" because of the assembly of reference frames.

Same way they burn above water actually, heat fuel and oxygen. Generally just the fuel changes to be compatible with an H2O environment.

Machines break over time. Computers burn. So long as the law of increasing entropy holds true, no one will live forever and death is a certainty. It may seem like a cyborg could live forever, but eventually he will use up all the available energy by converting it into heat energy and be unable to sustain himself, even if it takes a billion billion years. So no, he won't technically live forever, just a really long time.

Don't forget that we're internet nerdz too, which means we know our math of course (and don't yell "SPEAK FOR YOURSELF" at me, by posting on SEN you automatically gain +25 nerd points). Perhaps if you went into the topological representations of the symmetries of SU4 you might be able to stump us, but I don't think you can go into that because that's what my math proffessor is working on, and he's a freaking genius

Lol. We're in serious discussion pal.


Just a minor correction, the fuel is made to emit oxygen as it burns, (a quick example is saltpetre, which makes oxygen as a byproduct of it's combustion)

They aren't blind
Whatever.

That would be a different species of humans, I name it Homo Aerialis

What more is there to explain, it can't be compressed.

/sigh

Very little effect does not mean you are not poisoned, and even in tiny quantities it would be harmful to cells.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 27 2009, 6:20 pm by Dapperdan. Reason: not sd worthy - getting off-topic