Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.newage,alt.atheism,alt.pagan,alt.consciousness,alt.paranormal.channeling,alt.consciousness.mysticism
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: rereRe: The end of god
Message-ID: <Cy72p4.B1r@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <36vt2m$g6m@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> <383kau$5q2@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> <Cxzo7E.91v@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <Harmon.776.000A2404@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 20:39:04 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <Harmon.776.000A2404@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu>,
Michael G. Harmon <Harmon@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <Cxzo7E.91v@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>Your example just illustrates the Goedel theorem.  The point I was trying to 
>>make was that to know something 'for sure' we also use mathematics, even
>>if applied to a system external to the one in which this something is true.
>>Short of divine inspiration, what we hold to be true in science is arrived at
>>by logical reasoning at some level. We may propose various conjectures and
>>even have a deep, unfaltering belief that such a conjecture is true, it only
>>becomes a scientific truth if proven using logic. Penrose seems to suggest
>>that there are some scientific (mathematical) truths which logic cannot prove.
>>I have yet to hear an example. Yours does not cut it.
>
>>Andrzej
>
>It may be that Penrose is saying there are some truths that are not 
>scientific in nature that will subsequently remain unprovable by scientific 
>method.  It might be that such phenomenon that would be agreed upon as valid 
>solely by the concurrance of a sufficient number of credentialed members of 
>the scientific community who either try the idea out in their own minds and 
>admit a certain reasonance with respect to the rest of what they know or 
>perhaps be able to gain a statisical basis by experimenting with the 
>subjective perceptions of a group of subjects who claim to be able to directly 
>percieve aspects of the 'truth' in question.  

How would this differ from widely accepted cojectures? These would just
be plausible guesses, wouldn't they? Are you suggesting to turn mathematics
into a democracy and determine mathematical truths by voting? I hope not.

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
