Skylab72

True that, there are hundreds of Gödel explanations on the internet, and the quality varies greatly. It might take a while to find one that is understandable, accurate, and comprehensive enough for your needs. If you are so inclined, I think Godel's Proof by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, published in 1958 and released in paperback by New York University Press in 1983 is one of the better sources. You can sample with Amazon and may be able to get what you need or determine it is useful to you. I've gotten some useful info with "plain language" as a modifier for the search. ​The use of adding a concept encompassing all of the unknown is useful when dealing with questions whose answer is proveably indeterminate.

Dude, Please, you are an Admin on what is supposed to be a rationalist forum. If your mind is too small to understand a line of reasoning, it would behoove you to to avoid the Ad Hominem attack. The rationalists may object to your failing to uphold the your charter. As for me, if your opinion of 'reaching' is that low, why do you participate in such a forum? Is it just to inforce your own bias?

No, I would not go there. IMO it could logically and consistently be a set that includes Objectivism. One cannot insist Rand said anything she did not say.

Well, IMO to the first question, No, God is nature not the other way around, a little appreciation and understanding is all that is needed to keep you alive, nature is remarkably forgiving, over all. In some situations however, she can be a bitch. That "formal recognition as "The Only God," which thou shalt recognize no other?" was, IMO, finally made formal by Gödel's proof...

That would be silly, the theorem proves itself to be incomplete in the process of proving itself consistent. It is not greek it is mathematics, which is all greek to most folks I guess...

Did that help at all Nick? I seem to have trouble being understandable...

If you are talking to me. Philosophy. Where P is being used to refer to any coherent philosophical Proposition. Objectivism is a logical proposition. Existence of a deity is a proposition. My observable outlook is a finite logical system (be it logical or illogical), AND can be referred to as a proposition(P). I therefore began "In order to prove one's finite logical system(my personal philosophy), one has to define it in such a way as to include the statement "I cannot prove P. Where P is a proposition outside the domain of the system. Similarly one must be able to say, "I cannot prove NOT P". Same reasoning." Which is english for the conclusion of the postulate section of Gödel's Proof. I then continue "But I MUST be able to talk about P outside my finite system in order to remain consistent." which is a paraphrase of the conclusion of Gödel's completeness theorem. At that point I attempted to explain why I lean toward the proposition(P) where "God exists as kind of an über Reality." rather than "not God". Succinct does not always make clearer, sorry.

You are right that is a valid distinction, however I was hoping to convey both. The deism part is the assertion "I believe in a deity." The theism part is the whole logical chain by which I link my ethics to that assertion.

ObjectiChristianty sounds like an oxymoron. Christianity is only a contemporary subset of religion that seems to have a large following, while embracing a huge population of hypocritical bigots, Not Christian does not imply not bigoted. In order to prove one's finite logical system, one has to define it in such a way as to include the statement "I cannot prove P. Where P is a proposition outside the domain of the system. Similarly one must be able to say, "I cannot prove NOT P". Same reasoning. But I MUST be able to talk about P outside my finite system in order to remain consistent. If I define P as a religion based in (not on) the need to talk about P in order to derive useful questions and answers including unknowable components, sub(P) or P, then I think I can offer it as consistent with Objectivism where Objectivism is a consistent P inside my consistent philosophical system. QED for the original post. ​Sincere Thanks to all participants who have helped me clarify my verbiage. And that. is all I have to say about that.

Thank you, you have swayed me, sorry not wholly to your point of view, rather to a better name than calling myself a theist. See post above. I agree god is a fantasy. My God, however is a mathematical concept... Mmm perhaps M-theism would work, M for Math, however that would invite the under educated to assume it was impractical theory, when practical life affirming practice, is what should be the goal. Needs more pondering.

Thank you, excellent point! There exists an adjective oft combined with theist that comes close, but it too is 'taken'. Omnitheist, which has it's own intellectual baggage. I will ponder that at length, and post if I come up with something I think useful. As always suggestions welcome. I can clearly see being pedantic about capitalization confuses people. In my defense I found it so useful to indicate the domain of a word used in the Infinite-Meta sense with a capital letter, hoping the monotheists had pretty well sold the convention. Meta-Meta...-Super-Set Monotheism is awkward, M-theism might tie it to a huge body of physics that might have huge chunks repudiated, there has to be a useful semi-descriptive term, but thank you, I will ponder this at length.

IMO: god in most cases, I have found to imply not conscious. God however, by my definition and convention (the capital letter) which I in no way am attempting to sell, as the infinite set/meta-set would have to. I like Jefferson's writings because they seem most consistent among theists of the era.

Approach it as you will, I can throw out "supernatural" as bad logic and still want a logical framework in which to approach systems beyond my comprehension. The completeness theorem laid that framework for me.

In all candor, the "god literature" usually describes god as omnipotent, all seeing, all knowing, and all powerful. I find it ludicrous to think such a being would be insecure enough to need any "worship". Anyway, I have already stated my definition has "God" as subsuming All, soooo I have no need for my white corpuscles to worship me. I do however hope they behave according to their True nature so I continue to function in a maximally optimal fashion. I assume my god (or God if you to are a theist), has a similar attitude.

To me 'supernatural' as commonly used, is an oxymoron. Reality is real, so super natural would be super real not extra real, but my definition of 'God' includes Everything observable so extra real is subsumed or driven to absurdity depending on whether is actually is Real, because extra may just be beyond my understanding....

Dr. Peikoff was emphasizing a metaphysical point. In practical application the world rapidly presents us with choices that contain complex interrelations, and/or consequences that require trade-offs. He is urging one to 'keep your eye on the ball' so to speak and watch for situations where you might be tempted to trade a very real risk to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for a shorter term goal.

This may be the most disappointing discussion on this web site. Why is it necessary to go on for 37+ pages in response to a question that is so fraught with fallacy? "Preemptive" force is initiating the use of force. That is immoral. No "state of war" exists between the US and Iran because no provocation has risen to the level our seriously broken political system would have the moral fortitude or coherent protocols to actually declare a war. Slinging nukes like some deranged crusader is a surefire route to more world problems not less. The enemy is NOT a country. The battle field is IDEAS, and most of what I read here would tend to indicate we have already lost, since warmongering claptrap seem to pervade. If you are so anxious to fight go join a military service. After you have experienced combat then come back and explain why killing people is so much fun. Blaming Iran for 911 is less cogent than blaming Lt. Calley for Mie Lai.

Now this is a challenge I can sink my teeth into. Thanks Repairman for the succinct question. I wish my answer could be as succinct. Reality is real. Existence exists. A is A. The identity property reigns supreme. I admit to agreeing with Ms. Rand's epistemology and philosophy more than any other I have come across. But I am also a self described "theist". I am therefore one of your targets for this query. Begin at the bottom. De Carte, "Cognito Ergo Sum". Think therefore AM. Not as is oft translated (not wholly incorrectly, context may imply the speaker) "I think therefore I am", more as, One who thinks, must from only that evidence Exist. DeCarte, as do many others, thought that irreducible. Other threads on this forum have tamped that turf hard enough to leave it at that. I think. I perceive. I use mathematics to describe what I perceive. I stand on the shoulders of hundreds of years of Giants who have done the same. The scientific method is one of my most useful tools. I find however, that as useful as it may be, it always falls short. Mathematics has extended the range of our perceptions to the point we suspect the volume of our reality is expanding far faster than our species ability to explain. I/we turned to math to chart what to do, to define a system within reality which would be both consistent and complete. For two hundred years we worked on the problem. Then in the first quarter of the twentieth century, a young upstart in an elite German school, proved it could not be done. No finite system, can be both consistent and complete. In order to prove a system consistent one must prove it incomplete. In order to prove it complete, one must prove it inconsistent. It is no accident quantum theory also sprang from this era. I have great confidence Reality (note the use of caps) was exposed in Gödel's completeness theorem. It took a while to absorb Kurt's work but when the implications became clear, thirty plus years of Agnosticism/Atheism melted away. Like many Rand fans I find it easier to deal only with what I know, and that certainly is useful, but there always comes a time when one has to deal with the unknown and the uncertain. I'd long believed man "invented" gods to explain the unknown. So here at last I had a concept worthy of the name. So my god became God, defined as, That System which is Infinite, Complete, Consistent, and Unary (The first two properties require subsuming all others). So with this epiphany I went back to revisit all the "god literature" with my newfound conviction. Then I found Rand (again). (This next sentence is a long one, so wherever I say 'translation' think 'English translation') After visiting three translations of the protestant Bible, the approved translation of the Catholic Bible, the only translation of the Greek Orthodox Bible I could find, the Jefferson Bible, two translations of the Quran, two translations of the Torah, Three translations of the Bagivad Gita, twenty six translations of the Tao (it is short), eight English volumes purporting to be the teaching of Buddha, seven volumes focused on the teachings of Confucius, and three translations of The Five Rings, after all that, it was Rand who integrated it for me. "There are no contradictions. If you think you've found one, you have found either a faulty premise or a logical error.", Ayn Rand. When I simply took these works as a whole, and threw out all the contradictions (there are fewer than you might think), the remainder is a gold mine of pithy wisdom for living. Actually read the Jefferson Bible sometime, it is a national treasure. These works all said the same things, over and over. It had long been my belief that all the earths mythology originated from the same urge, to explain the unknown in such a way as to promote behavior consistent with man's nature and promoting the welfare of the largest groups the authors of these myths could hope to convence. During this exercise I found nothing to dissuade that point of view, they all use the same concepts, and in many cases the same situations and constructs to reveal their truth. The difference with Rand was she just saw the results of the industrial 'revolution' before she set out to write, ( IMO more clearly than most.) and unlike the others she consciously avoided any argument except the logical one. But in every case, there are followers who morph and corrupt the teaching until much of it's Truth is obscured. So it shall be with Rand, given time it is inevitable. The laws of physics however are not going away, Reality is Real, Existence Exists, and A is A. One hundred eighty six thousand miles per second is God's law. Thou shalt not steal is a natural consequence. It is hard for some folks to understand the difference. So let them bind what morality they can find, in terms they are comfortable with. To me God is Real, because the cosmos is unfolding as it should, not the other way around. Now as I struggle to grasp Grigori Perleman's work, I dream of building meaningful maps of the cosmos with it, so we can travel farther and learn even more, in order to survive both as individuals and as a species. We still struggle with the unknown because what you don't know, eventually, will kill you, you are finite. Reality is not. I stand before you, a theist objectivist. I have 'faith' in thousands of things I personally cannot prove, I stand on the shoulders of giants. I 'pray' because I find there are creative capabilities at my disposal triggered by visioning 'the world as it should be' under under an infinite sky. My God is an infinite N-dimensional manifold of three core properties that are weakly reflected in the three core equation sets defining the basic forces of the standard model, Strong Molecular, Weak Molecular, and Gravity. That is all I have to say about that, I am too stupid to go on.

I would respond that the statement is patently false. Objectivists tend to be endlessly curious and ask endless questions about everything. It takes no shoehorn to make consciousness axiomatic, it only takes giving up the petty arrogance that human consciousness is unique. I've watched a gorilla sign jokes in a standard sign language. I've seen chimps play pranks on zoo keepers. I see a level of complexity in cetacean behavior that assures me we are not alone in thinking. Moreover my cosmology includes a very high probability that my home galaxy contains more sentient species than my home planet contains species. I ask lots of questions about the phenomenon. We need to know about it in order to survive out past the Kuiper belt.

And it gave us such a beloved trite saying. So, don't go tilting at windmills.

Oh, and Harrison, for the record I have read The Quran, The Gita, The Torah, The Roman Catholic Bible, The King James Version, Jefferson 'Bible', and an equal volume of other derivative works with various esoteric slants, and best I can tell, they are all talking about the same thing. Moreover, the followers of every particular persuasion all make the same error. The "I know 'God' and you don't." logical fallacy, then assume they have the mandate to initiate the use of force to 'help out' an all powerful' all knowing' deity who really does not need their help. The followers are the problem not the religion. You touch on the real issue, metaphysics, but seem to miss that a consistent metaphysics demands the acknowledgment that your framework is incomplete. Ref: Kurt Gödel

Please, have you read no history? The only "religions" that have not partaken in the bloodbath are not really "religions" at all. The concept "God" (note capital letter), as a topic, is a discussion about all the stuff for which we have yet to form a viable hypothesis. Anyone who claims he "Knows" more about what "God" wants, thinks, intends or whatever simply does not understand the topic. Mankind has a long and illustrious history of killing each other over stuff we do not understand, (and are therefore terrified of)... Peace can only come with justice. Justice can only come through a transparent forum. I hope therefore that technology continues to make it harder to keep secrets...

Those same people think the CIA condoned the level of drug trafficking depicted in "Air America" as well, the "hollywood" dramatic version of reality sells well enough, the gullible will always be there to partake. It is good to understand that any clandestine service has deal "collateral" events, and sometimes they are real and sometimes they were imagined. People react to both kinds...

Kudos SL on firing up this thread. It has turned out to be quite interesting. Just as one more 2cents. I find it a little unsettling how many folks try to provide some justification scenario for preemption. Maybe I misunderstood something, but it would seem to me you all understood the AR assertion that the initiation of the use of force against another is immoral. You can play all you want with the quickdraw scenario, but it is the challenge "slap leather" or the weapon bound twitch of the wrist that is the initiation. I do not care if I detect the "twitch" with visual acuity or a computer that sees a three microsecond burst of RF energy, there is always a threshold that marks the initiation of the use of force. As a combat vet my english explanation of the process is this. Any sequence of behaviors that convince me as a skeptical observer that you are both able and intend to cause me mortal harm, is adequate initiation of force for me to retaliate. Yes we can go on refining what a "skeptical observer" is but suffice it to say I trust a bunch of self described Objectivists to understand. Preemptive NEVER meets my criteria for moral. I would suggest however that basing any "morality example" inside an existing system, known to be deficient [such as our planets politico/diplomatic infrastructure] is fraught with more potential for error than I care to discuss.

Oh and as far as I am concerned, '"Realism" doesn't simply mean "existence exists" here; both it and anti-realism agree on that."' is patently false. If you think that, you have inverted a meta-concept and its subject.