Hey folks.

Let's cut Blurf a little slack on this please.

I haven't seen him post here before...and I'm not even sure he even read this thread before. That being said, he probably doesn't know how I do things here.

We can't fault him for trying to do his job. Besides, he was pretty nice about it. His post was just a friendly nudge. He didn't do anything that I didn't do when I was a mod.

Now...Robert...you still haven't told me why I am so wrong when I say that nothing can be truly defined as impossible when man has yet to determine all things which are possible.

---

Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

How does Objectivism equate with Myths, Legends, and Conspiracies...???

UFOs are generally considered to be objects. The word Object is in Objectivism. Conspiracy theories are common when UFOs are brought up. :D

Best I could do at the moment.

Ayn Rand was from outer space.

I haven't heard proof that she wasn't. It's possible.

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Last I knew this was a Myths, Legends, Conspiracies thread....let's try to get back on topic here please.

It's alright, Blurf.

I usually let things wander around in here anyway. We always manage to find our way back to the subjects of the thread.

---

Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

The Kecksburg UFO incident revisited.

Last I knew this was a Myths, Legends, Conspiracies thread....let's try to get back on topic here please.

Please see how epistemology was ... at least somewhat legitimately ... introduced into the discussion ... days ago.
Please note that the thread author allowed it.
For further discussions about whether any of this is off-topic or not, contact the thread author, please. :)

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

How does Objectivism equate with Myths, Legends, and Conspiracies...???

UFOs are generally considered to be objects. The word Object is in Objectivism. Conspiracy theories are common when UFOs are brought up. :D

Best I could do at the moment.

Ayn Rand was from outer space.

LOL!!!

@ Blurf, please lighten up. For over a year now Knightmare, the founder of this thread, and many of the regular posters have been discussing epistemology and related topics as they are fundamental to the subjects of 'myths, legends, and conspiracies'. The world is not likely to end if we stop talking about BigFoot and the Mothman for a couple of days.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

How does Objectivism equate with Myths, Legends, and Conspiracies...???

UFOs are generally considered to be objects. The word Object is in Objectivism. Conspiracy theories are common when UFOs are brought up. :D

Best I could do at the moment.

Ayn Rand was from outer space.

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Reality Internet Personality

Last I knew this was a Myths, Legends, Conspiracies thread....let's try to get back on topic here please.

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What the f***?
That's just effing wrong.
Seriously, it's f-ing wrong!
WTF?!?

---

Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

How does Objectivism equate with Myths, Legends, and Conspiracies...???

UFOs are generally considered to be objects. The word Object is in Objectivism. Conspiracy theories are common when UFOs are brought up. :D

Best I could do at the moment.

It'll have to do.....

---

Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

How does Objectivism equate with Myths, Legends, and Conspiracies...???

UFOs are generally considered to be objects. The word Object is in Objectivism. Conspiracy theories are common when UFOs are brought up. :D

Best I could do at the moment.

---

The same point applies to concepts denoting specific forms of error. If we cannot ever be certain that an argument is logically valid, if validity is unknowable, then the concept of "invalid" reasoning is impossible to reach or apply. If we cannot ever know that a man is sane, then the concept of "insanity" is impossible to form or define. If we cannot recognize the state of being awake, then we cannot recognize or conceptualize a state of not being awake (such as dreaming). If man cannot grasp X, then "non-X" stands for nothing.

Ok....you know I am loathe to have this kind of discussion in here....but just for the sake of argument....

Doesn't it also stand to reason, then, that " impossible " cannot be defined because man has not yet discovered everything which IS possible??

Huh? Knightmate, it's impossible to discuss whether or not 'Bigfoot' videos or Ufo abductions are valid or rising or falling interest rates do this or that to
such and such segment of the economy without epistemology. Your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

What do you mean that

Doesn't it also stand to reason, then, that " impossible " cannot be defined because man has not yet discovered everything which IS possible??

Did you mistype? Hmmm....so air plane flight is 'not discovered as possible'?

You typed a message. Hell, you created a whole thread going back 2 years almost and ipso facto that is 'possible'. Hell, man, you did it. And it is certainly 'possible'...nay, a 'fact' that you are reading this right now.

What do you mean that mankind has NEVER DISCOVERED ANYTHING TO BE 'POSSIBLE' ?

That isn't what I said Robert. You misread my intention.

What I said was.....man has not yet discovered everything that IS possible. There are new discoveries being made on a daily basis.

As in the days of the Wright Brothers....what may seem impossible today...may be commonplace in the near ( relatively speaking ) future.

KnightMare. I quoted you correctly. You may have edited your posting but my copy is still above where you said man has 'not discovered anything to be possible'.

I presume you to have misspoken. Your skepticism though is something I've been trying to address. It masquerades as 'open mindedness' but in reality it is disbelief in everything. You have no standards by which to measure the valid vs the invalid or the good and the bad. One thing is as good as the other with your 'system'.

Man doesn't have to discover all that is possible in order to know that some things are and some things are not. We advance by applying knowledge in an ever advancing web of interrelated subjects using the tools of logic and reason in order to determine where to proceed further. To flippantly insinuate or claim that 'all things are possible' which is perhaps something you adhere to as an ideal is in error, sir. The statement itself contradicts its own. There is no such thing in the Universe as a true statement where one maintains that 'All that is possible including the contradiction of the claim that all is possible is possible/impossible'. It makes no sense.

You're not embracing reality . You're evading it. I'm sorry. But the Universe just doesn't like you. :-P

No Robert....you didn't quote me properly....I did no editing to my original post.

* NOW I am editing this post *

I am simply saying that " all things are not necessarily impossible. AS hard as that is for you to understand, I would have figured you would have given up on trying to break me by now....lol

I will kill you and your little dog too! Rush will have you water boarded!!!

Seriously though, are some things impossible? If so, then state so.

After all if you conclude that some things are certain then that means that some things are IMPOSSIBLE....ie things that contradict those prior things that are certain.

I think perhaps you confuse developmental aspects of reality like technology with fundamental principles of the Universe. You mistake what people think about the world with the world itself. This of course is what philosophers would call a subjectivist epistemological view.

Bottom line is you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Once you claim one thing as certain...like the notion you undoubtedly have in your mind at this moment that you are reading a screen you can no longer entertain the notion that any proposition that opposes that belief is possible. It is in fact now regarded as ABSOLUTELY false.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=46&h=44

Among the sciences, mathematics has a unique relation to philosophy. Since antiquity, philosophers have envied it as the model of logical perfection, because of the clarity of its concepts and the certainty of its conclusions, and have therefore devoted much effort to explaining the nature of mathematics.

Modern Issues

The popular current view is that mathematics has passed through a series of logical or epistemological crises that have done it severe damage. For a history of these "crises" (e.g. the invention of non-euclidean geometry and the discovery of the set-theoretic paradoxes), and a thorough survey of the issues in modern mathematical philosophy, see Morris Kline's Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty. Kline was a mathematician; this book accurately reflects the sort of attitude that one encounters among practitioners, and it is well documented with pertinent mathematics.

To determine whether there are flaws in the foundations of a subject, one must first answer the more basic epistemological question of what constitutes a proper foundation. The Objectivist position that all knowledge must be grounded in perception, and grasped and organized conceptually, has played virtually no role in the historical development of the philosophy of mathematics. The primary task of an Objectivist approach is to ground mathematics objectively. An important secondary task is to explain how other epistemological presuppositions have brought about the sense of crisis and doubt that has characterized the field.

That all knowledge must be grounded in perception presupposes such advances as the complex number system. No one could perceive sqrt(-1). It was a thought experiment, to call sqrt(-1) the "imaginary" unit i.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivist_philosophy

Ayn Rand's philosophy is based on three axioms: the axiom of Existence, the law of Identity, and the axiom of Consciousness. Rand defined an axiom as "a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it."[5] As Leonard Peikoff noted, Rand's argumentation "is not a proof that the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are true. It is proof that they are axioms, that they are at the base of knowledge and thus inescapable."[4]

Objectivism states that "Existence exists" (the "axiom of Existence") and "Existence is Identity." To be is to be "an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes."[5] That which has no attributes does not and cannot exist. Hence, "A is A" ("Law of Identity:") a thing is what it is. Whereas "existence exists" pertains to existence itself (whether something exists or not), the law of identity pertains to the nature of an object as being necessarily distinct from other objects (whether something exists as this or that). As Rand wrote, "A leaf cannot be all red and green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A."

That which is exists is definable (by its attributes) is a questionable statement.
What are the points of undefined terms and axioms?
To avoid circular reasoning.
It is from undefined terms, then definitions, then axioms, that propositions and their proofs follow.

From Euclid until Hilbert, axioms were statements taken to be true without proof. These statements were viewed as "self-evident." Interesting? The current approach to axioms is that there does not need to be any self-evidence. The axioms may even be about mathematical structures for which there is no currently known way to view them in the ways we perceive the universe, so how can we talk about them being self-evident? However, the axiomatic system must be consistent.
It cannot lead to two if-then statements later on which contradict each other.

As an example, what a straight line is in Euclidean geometry is different from what a straight line is in Hyperbolic geometry. Which, if either, is the geometry of "reality"? It is not known yet. Empirical attempts to measure this have taken place and some are probably still under way.

Fundamentally, Sarge. I don't see any disagreement here with your above. Except about the 'self evidency' part which I posted about earlier. The only things that are 'self evident' are the concretes of experience ie perception. It appears you and I are in agreement here otherwise with our terms of usage in regard to axiomatic concepts.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

http://www.jburgd12.k12.il.us/jjhs/dept/math8/ssweb/malist.htm

Descartes, Rene - French algebraist, geometer, and philosopher
Hypatia of Alexandria - Greek geometer, astronomer, and philosopher
Leibniz, Gottfried von - German philosopher and logician
Pythagoras of Samos - Greek geometer and philosopher
Thales of Miletus - Greek geometer, philosopher, and astronomer

That's just a few. :)

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

The same point applies to concepts denoting specific forms of error. If we cannot ever be certain that an argument is logically valid, if validity is unknowable, then the concept of "invalid" reasoning is impossible to reach or apply. If we cannot ever know that a man is sane, then the concept of "insanity" is impossible to form or define. If we cannot recognize the state of being awake, then we cannot recognize or conceptualize a state of not being awake (such as dreaming). If man cannot grasp X, then "non-X" stands for nothing.

Ok....you know I am loathe to have this kind of discussion in here....but just for the sake of argument....

Doesn't it also stand to reason, then, that " impossible " cannot be defined because man has not yet discovered everything which IS possible??

Huh? Knightmate, it's impossible to discuss whether or not 'Bigfoot' videos or Ufo abductions are valid or rising or falling interest rates do this or that to
such and such segment of the economy without epistemology. Your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

What do you mean that

Doesn't it also stand to reason, then, that " impossible " cannot be defined because man has not yet discovered everything which IS possible??

Did you mistype? Hmmm....so air plane flight is 'not discovered as possible'?

You typed a message. Hell, you created a whole thread going back 2 years almost and ipso facto that is 'possible'. Hell, man, you did it. And it is certainly 'possible'...nay, a 'fact' that you are reading this right now.

What do you mean that mankind has NEVER DISCOVERED ANYTHING TO BE 'POSSIBLE' ?

That isn't what I said Robert. You misread my intention.

What I said was.....man has not yet discovered everything that IS possible. There are new discoveries being made on a daily basis.

As in the days of the Wright Brothers....what may seem impossible today...may be commonplace in the near ( relatively speaking ) future.

KnightMare. I quoted you correctly. You may have edited your posting but my copy is still above where you said man has 'not discovered anything to be possible'.

I presume you to have misspoken. Your skepticism though is something I've been trying to address. It masquerades as 'open mindedness' but in reality it is disbelief in everything. You have no standards by which to measure the valid vs the invalid or the good and the bad. One thing is as good as the other with your 'system'.

Man doesn't have to discover all that is possible in order to know that some things are and some things are not. We advance by applying knowledge in an ever advancing web of interrelated subjects using the tools of logic and reason in order to determine where to proceed further. To flippantly insinuate or claim that 'all things are possible' which is perhaps something you adhere to as an ideal is in error, sir. The statement itself contradicts its own. There is no such thing in the Universe as a true statement where one maintains that 'All that is possible including the contradiction of the claim that all is possible is possible/impossible'. It makes no sense.

You're not embracing reality . You're evading it. I'm sorry. But the Universe just doesn't like you. :-P

No Robert....you didn't quote me properly....I did no editing to my original post.

* NOW I am editing this post *

I am simply saying that " all things are not necessarily impossible. AS hard as that is for you to understand, I would have figured you would have given up on trying to break me by now....lol

---

Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

A statement, by definition, is something that is either true or false within a given axiomatic system.

In Euclidean geometry, in any triangle, the sum of the measures of the three interior angles is 180 degrees. Such is not the case following the axioms of Hyperbolic geometry.

Philosophy itself overrules and gives 'orders to' mathematics and geometry. Those two fields are subservient to its principles.

It doesn't work 'upstream' though. So anything you wish to discuss about Euclidean geometry and its axioms do not in any way apply here.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Axioms are neither proved nor disproved.

Exactly! They are superior to proven facts! They are the basis for ALL proof. They are the 'gods and goddesses' of proof as a concept in our consciousness!.

They're far above 'proof'. They're the perfect absolute truth.

This is as close to saying they're self-evident as you can get without actually saying it. Axioms are merely assumptions to proceed from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_system

History

The earliest record we have of such a practice dates back to Euclid (circa 300 BC) in his attempt to axiomatize Euclidean geometry and elementary number theory. Up until the beginning of the nineteenth century it was generally assumed, in European mathematics and philosophy (for example in Spinoza's work) that the heritage of Greek mathematics represented the highest standard of intellectual finish (development more geometrico, in the style of the geometers). As such, modern mathematician often discuss the axiomatic method as if it were a unitary approach.

This traditional approach, in which axioms were supposed to be self-evident and so indisputable, was swept away during the course of the nineteenth century, by the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the foundations of real analysis, Cantor's set theory and Frege's work on foundations, and Hilbert's 'new' use of axiomatic method as a research tool. For example, group theory was first put on an axiomatic basis towards the end of that century. Once the axioms were clarified (that inverse elements should be required, for example), the subject could proceed autonomously, without reference to the transformation group origins of those studies.

If one were to look at non-Western mathematics, one would observe that mathematics developed to some sophistication in the ancient civilizations in the Near East, India and China without employing the axiomatic method. Although many disciplines in modern mathematics, notably abstract algebra and topology, are conceived within the framework of the axiomatic method, the flourishing of ancient mathematics provides a viable alternate epistemology towards the practice of mathematics.

An axiomatic system is said to be consistent if it lacks contradiction, i.e. [it lacks!] the ability to derive both a statement and its negation from the system's axioms.

Again, the early geometers were first and foremost philosophers. Thus, mathematics and philosophy share roots when it comes to epistemology.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

The same point applies to concepts denoting specific forms of error. If we cannot ever be certain that an argument is logically valid, if validity is unknowable, then the concept of "invalid" reasoning is impossible to reach or apply. If we cannot ever know that a man is sane, then the concept of "insanity" is impossible to form or define. If we cannot recognize the state of being awake, then we cannot recognize or conceptualize a state of not being awake (such as dreaming). If man cannot grasp X, then "non-X" stands for nothing.

Ok....you know I am loathe to have this kind of discussion in here....but just for the sake of argument....

Doesn't it also stand to reason, then, that " impossible " cannot be defined because man has not yet discovered everything which IS possible??

Huh? Knightmate, it's impossible to discuss whether or not 'Bigfoot' videos or Ufo abductions are valid or rising or falling interest rates do this or that to such and such segment of the economy without epistemology. Your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

What do you mean that

Doesn't it also stand to reason, then, that " impossible " cannot be defined because man has not yet discovered everything which IS possible??

Did you mistype? Hmmm....so air plane flight is 'not discovered as possible'?

You typed a message. Hell, you created a whole thread going back 2 years almost and ipso facto that is 'possible'. Hell, man, you did it. And it is certainly 'possible'...nay, a 'fact' that you are reading this right now.

What do you mean that mankind has NEVER DISCOVERED ANYTHING TO BE 'POSSIBLE' ?

That isn't what I said Robert. You misread my intention.

What I said was.....man has not yet discovered everything that IS possible. There are new discoveries being made on a daily basis.

As in the days of the Wright Brothers....what may seem impossible today...may be commonplace in the near ( relatively speaking ) future.

KnightMare. I quoted you correctly. You may have edited your posting but my copy is still above where you said man has 'not discovered anything to be possible'.

I presume you to have misspoken. Your skepticism though is something I've been trying to address. It masquerades as 'open mindedness' but in reality it is disbelief in everything. You have no standards by which to measure the valid vs the invalid or the good and the bad. One thing is as good as the other with your 'system'.

Man doesn't have to discover all that is possible in order to know that some things are and some things are not. We advance by applying knowledge in an ever advancing web of interrelated subjects using the tools of logic and reason in order to determine where to proceed further. To flippantly insinuate or claim that 'all things are possible' which is perhaps something you adhere to as an ideal is in error, sir. The statement itself contradicts its own. There is no such thing in the Universe as a true statement where one maintains that 'All that is possible including the contradiction of the claim that all is possible is possible/impossible'. It makes no sense.

You're not embracing reality . You're evading it. I'm sorry. But the Universe just doesn't like you. :-P

---

Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

A statement, by definition, is something that is either true or false within a given axiomatic system.

In Euclidean geometry, in any triangle, the sum of the measures of the three interior angles is 180 degrees. Such is not the case following the axioms of Hyperbolic geometry.

---

Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.