SpookyKitty

Alright, I'll take your challenge (though I'm like a year late) Truth is a relation of correspondence between propositions and facts. We say that a proposition P is true precisely when it is the case that P.

"Privatizing" NA land won't work. The trouble is that the NA's consider themselves separate countries and want to avoid living under US law as much as possible. Nor would complete separation be practical either, as many tribes own land outside of their reservations, creating a complicated mish-mash of tribal and private land, and separation would cause all kinds of problems.

@Grames Are you saying that any proposition about reality is necessarily only approximately true of reality? Because that is some serious post-modernist BS, right there.

No, but it was implied.

Yes, I have addressed this point and I have shown how Grames' argument fails to support it. I don't think any realists with regards to universals or platonists would say that ideas about abstract objects are identical to abstract objects. People who think that are called idealists.

Well, in regard to mathematical theorems, you need a proof in the conventional form of mathematics. I am going to speak very frankly. You are displaying an astounding amount of arrogance towards the mathematical community. You lack sufficient mathematical background to even understand what the problem is, and yet you speak as if this problem can be solved easily simply by not being a "skeptic" who "enjoys the ride". To an amateur, such as yourself, it seems as though every problem which can be easily stated can also be easily solved. But this is not at all true. Many great mathematicians have tried very hard to solve this problem, and all of them have failed. As for your analysis, it is woefully inadequate and misguided. You do not even know how much you don't know when it comes to this problem. It's as if you are trying to build a spaceship out of dirt and sticks. Now I will say some nice things and constructive suggestions. You seem motivated and smart, and none of what I say above is to dissuade you from trying to actually solve this problem. But in order to even begin and not just waste your own time, you will need the right tools. First, you need to familiarize yourself with classical logic. Then, you need to read and practice lots of proofs. Third, you need to study lots and lots of discrete mathematics, and since many attempted proofs rely on analytic methods, lots of calculus and lots of complex analysis. Finally, you will also need to study up on computability theory and number theory. Once you've done all that, study at least the best known attempted proofs. Only then will you even stand a chance.

Any counterexample at all would be considered a proof of the negative, not just evidence. I don't intend to be offensive, but what is there to check, exactly? I'm not at all sure what you think you've achieved here. I don't see anything resembling a proof, and for anything less than that there's no point in checking.

Unfortunately, mere evidence one way or the other counts for nothing in mathematics. There are many statements that were thought to be true until some absurdly large counterexample was discovered. For example, the conjecture that (n^29) + 14 and (n+1)^29 + 14 are relatively prime for all n, is true for all numbers less than 345253422116355058862366766874868910441560096980654656110408105446268691941239624255384457677726969174087561682040026593303628834116200365400

What if I told you that programs can also write programs?

Induction has to do with concept formation, and not all thinking is concept formation.

Can you explain it better, then? Well, what do you mean by "thinking"?

This isn't exactly true. The exact behavior of a program may not be known to a programmer prior to actually running the program. For example, programmers are capable of making chess AI's that are FAR better chess players than the programmers themselves.

This is a non-sequitur. Deterministic systems such as computer programs actually can learn and modify their behavior in response to new data. Again, a non-sequitur. If the concept of "person" makes sense , then it is definitely possible to check whether a given group of particles satisfies the "person relation" or not.

@Eiuol So, your only gripe with my previous example is that it fails the narrowness test?

No. Unlike NM and GR, there is currently no known experiment or phenomenon which contradicts Speical Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. They are very likely both True.

Because it's easier to calculate and the deviations from reality are small enough to not matter for those purposes?

Because it makes false propositions. Why is this so goddamn complicated?

If we want to know the truth then yes. And yes, I am aware, who cares?

You're right. GR, stritctly speaking, isn't true either. But as far as theories of gravity go, it's the best we've got.

I don't see what your point is. Modern physics does not include any sort of forces in the classical sense of the word.

Can you give me a simple example of a justified belief that meets these criteria?

Nor I, yours. But let me explain why they are false anyway. Newton's second law states that the net force F on a body will be related to its acceleration by F/m = a. This implies that a force could accelerate a body to a velocity higher than the speed of light. Which, according to special relativity is impossible. Newton's thrid law states that for every force exerted by a body A on body B along the line incident with their centers of mass there is an equal and opposite force along the same line toward A from B. The problem with this law is that it results in instantaneous action at a distance. It would allow faster than light communication between objects, which relativity forbids. The law of gravitation is false because there is no force of gravity. Eintein's tower gedankenexperiment (a good rundown of it is here: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/8940/how-can-gravitational-forces-influence-time) proves that all theories of gravitation based on forces are inconsistent with speical relativity. There is a lot wrong with this and it's hard to know where to begin. The equivalence principle states that frames of reference in uniform gravitational fields and those which are uniformly accelerating are indistinguishable. Newton's thrid law is not relevant here, nor is your equation m1aq=m2a2 even meaningful. You claimed that the inverse square law is "still the only way to measure the attraction produced by a mass...". First, it is not the only way. Gravity is analyzed using Einstein's field equations which make no mention of forces of any kind. And for that reason it isn't even the correct way. The current scientific status of Newtonian physics is that it is strictly speaking false, and its predictions are only approximately correct.

Why don't you give me the exact conditions for justification? Otherwise we'll be arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Newton's second and third laws of motion and the law of gravitation are definitely false in relativity. This is because all three of these laws presuppose absolute simultaneity. Ummm... no? What Newton said he did not offer is a mechanical explanation of the force of gravity, not a hypothesis as to why gravity exists. General Relativity says that there is no force of gravity in the first place.

Ok.... I was just sayin'....