What is the nature of proof?

[Guest Skeptic]

Proof is "the evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true." (google)

This compulsion is basically the same as any other physical reaction.

I want to believe Objectivism, but the axioms confuse me.

[AshRyan]

First, I think that the notion of compulsion should be removed from your concept of "proof." I don't think it's right to say that your mind is "compelled" to accept any argument, no matter how inescapably sound it seems to you to be. An obvious example of this is that many religious people will continue to believe in supernatural beings even after all of their arguments for him have been convincingly demolished. So something can be proven, and a given individual can even understand that proof, and still reject it. One must recognize a given argument as being sound (or whatever other methods of proof might be available to him, such as direct perception), and choose to accept it. Volition is a necessary element here, and so I don't think it's correct to say it's "the same as any other physical reaction."

Now, on to your main question, what exactly is it about the axioms that you find confusing? As stated, this is too broad to answer.

[GCS]

I agree with Ash here, but I'd like to add something. The acceptance involved in proof can't be "the same as any other physical reaction" because neither proof nor the acceptance of a belief, are *physical* reactions. First they're not physical, they're *mental*, second precisely because volition is key here, none of this is properly described as a *reaction*, which at least implies passivity.

What's wrong with the standard Objectivist definition of proof as the process of establishing the truth of a proposition by reducing it to perception?