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Search found 132 matches
May 5th, 2013, 6:01 am
Define animal. A single cellular organism is a living thing and it can't in any way behave like a dog. There are living things which are more closely related to each other than others and can share similar characteristics, but there are also species which simply don't have anything in common, so I d...
April 16th, 2013, 7:03 am
I quite like ontological argument, because it is a clever use of words, that seems to be logical, while it completely bypasses logic, as shown by Kant. The trouble is that it uses the existence as a predicate (that means a logical property), which is something you can't do. You simply can't say &quo...
April 3rd, 2013, 7:50 am
I do not entirely agree with what has been said. Sure a job can't entirely determine who a person is, but it still might give an idea about her. Different tasks do require different skills and perhaps aspirations. I can hardly imagine a soldier, who signs for military and yet not caring about protec...
March 2nd, 2013, 12:52 pm
The limits in science just translate the observations made during experiments. If someone finds an object with negative temperature, then the laws of thermodynamics should be revised and a new theory, that would explain better the observed phenomena, should be invented, but as long as they are compa...
March 1st, 2013, 3:31 pm
I would probably have some serious discussion regarding ethics. I do not believe in God, so I can hardly hate Him. However if it turned out that he was real, I'd kindly ask him to tell to Christians to stop worshiping Him, because he got probably the biggest cult of personality around the world and ...
February 26th, 2013, 3:28 pm
(quote not shown) I am not an expert in logic, so I'd rather avoid that kind of discussion, but apparently there are several ways of formulating Euclidean geometry. There are the Hilbert's axioms, which consistency is relative to arithmetic, but there are also Tarski's axioms, which are actually kno...
February 24th, 2013, 3:48 pm
(quote not shown) I do not know the details, but the proof consists of finding a finite model for euclidean geometry. That means a finite set for which the axioms of euclidean geometry hold. Then you use the argument, that if there is at least one set with properties of euclidean geometry, that mean...
February 24th, 2013, 7:42 am
(quote not shown) I was only trying to make the point that one should not be hasty when judging whether there is, or isn't a use for a theory. Apparently the existence of antimatter was at first just a wild theoretical idea invented only so that the equations could fit and nowadays it is even possib...
February 24th, 2013, 7:34 am
(quote not shown) I agree, that consequences of both Godel's incompleteness theorems are very fascinating, however I disagree for them to be a general pattern for science. There are many mathematical theories, of which the consistency is well known (classical logic, arithmetic with only addition, eu...
February 23rd, 2013, 4:14 am
I can't say for the physicists, because I never studied theoretical physics, but in mathematics we commonly deal with objects that do not really exist. Infinite dimensions, infinitely elastic objects, a sphere that can be cut and reconstituted into a two spheres identical to the original and many ot...
February 22nd, 2013, 3:56 pm
I would just like to point out, that you want people abstain from emotions and use pure 'reasoning'. It is a bit difficult when it comes to something as emotional as happiness. I for instance could not be entirely happy if my happiness caused too much suffering. Most acts are selfish in the end, but...
February 22nd, 2013, 2:48 pm
(quote not shown) What you say is absolutely not true. The basis for the special theory of relativity is the invariance of Maxwell's equations in any referential system and how were Maxwell's equations obtained? By tons and tons of measures of electromagnetic fields. He also used the measurements of...
February 19th, 2013, 6:27 am
The existence of a spiritual God may be outside the scope of science, but some of the divine manifestations actually are not. Miracles like that a virgin could give birth to a son, who latter is brought back from the dead is in direct conflict with biology. So unifying science and some aspects of re...
February 19th, 2013, 6:11 am
Skakos wrote:(Nested quote removed.)
Yes outside arithmetic, but not necessarily outside of science or even logic.
February 18th, 2013, 8:31 am
(quote not shown) Not necessarily unscientific. Only by means that have not yet been invented. What Godel proved is that consistency of arithmetic can't be proven using the language of arithmetic. However logicians may find a more sophisticated and yet consistent language than the ones we know for n...