But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right? — frank

I think that the real power is in consistency. There is of course the assumption that the truth is consistent, but you can simplify the matter by just looking at the requirement of non-contradiction.

Someone who is lying will eventually end up claiming the thing and its very opposite. From there on, you can often exploit that to take the liar to the cleaners. Lies tend to be costly.

"This sentence is not true" has no similar place. It is used to confound and entertain neophytes, instead. — Banno

Yes, agreed. There is something specifically problematic with the liar sentence ("This sentence is not true").

Imagine that you could define the True(x) predicate in arithmetic. In that case, for all possible sentences A, the following would hold:

True(g(A)) ↔ A is true in N

It would define truth in arithmetic. The problem is, however, that the diagonal lemma predicts the existence of a counterexample:

But the diagonal lemma yields a counterexample to this equivalence, by giving a "Liar" sentence S such that S ↔ ¬True(g(S)) holds in N.

The expression "S ↔ ¬True(g(S))" means "S says about itself that it does not have the property True". Hence, it is not possible to define the True() predicate in arithmetic. This result is known as Tarski's undefinability theorem.

It is no other than the liar sentence that pops up to prevent the definition of truth in arithmetic. It is simply the show-stopping bug. That thing has therefore a very specific importance in metamathematics:

Smullyan (1991, 2001) has argued forcefully that Tarski's undefinability theorem deserves much of the attention garnered by Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

The remaining problem, however, is that the diagonal lemma, which is practically the contrapositive of Tarski's undefinability, is generally considered mysterious:

Workshop on Proof Theory, Modal Logic and Reflection Principles. October 18, 2017 10:35–11:10, Moscow, Steklov Mathematical Institute.

The Diagonal Lemma (of Gödel and Carnap) is one of the fundamental results in Mathematical Logic. However, its proof (as presented in textbooks) is very un_intuitive, and a kind of “pulling a rabbit out of a hat”.

The diagonal lemma reappears in so many other results -- it trivially proves Gödel's incompleteness as well as Tarski's undefinability -- while at the same time, it is generally considered incomprehensible. Nowadays, I can "somehow work" with the diagonal lemma, but I admit that I do not fully grasp it (I wonder who does ...).

For my money, it's on a par with "This statement is false": a nonsense, a broken grammatical amalgam that looks like it should say something, but doesn't. — Banno

Roughly speaking, in proving the first incompleteness theorem, Gödel used a modified version of the liar paradox, replacing "this sentence is false" with "this sentence is not provable", called the "Gödel sentence G".

It is not possible to replace "not provable" with "false" in a Gödel sentence because the predicate "Q is the Gödel number of a false formula" cannot be represented as a formula of arithmetic. This result, known as Tarski's undefinability theorem, was discovered independently by Gödel (when he was working on the proof of the incompleteness theorem) and by Alfred Tarski.

So, a liar-paradoxical statement is indeed "broken" in a sense, in terms of arithmetic. Apparently, it was Gödel's original starting point, but it did not work. In the diagonal lemma:

Let F be any formula in the language with one free variable, then here is a sentence ψ such that ψ ↔ F(°#(ψ)) is provable in T.

It is not allowed to choose F(x) as FALSE(x) or TRUE(x) in this lemma.

At the same time, TRUE and FALSE still are represented as functions in the lambda calculus:

TRUE := λx.λy.x
FALSE := λx.λy.y

I am not sure as to how to interpret that ...

In my opinion, Tarski's limitation is actually almost as paradoxical as the liar sentence itself. As far as I am concerned, Tarski's limitation is not intuitive at all.

Now Chinese leaders can show their true face. — ssu

There is an important colonial-history element to the problem. The incredible patience of Beijing has been absolutely commendable. Furthermore, the rulers in Beijing have generally kept to their end of the bargain:

British Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded in perpetuity, the leased area comprised 92 per cent of the territory and Britain considered that there was no viable way to divide the now single colony, while the Chinese Communist Party would not consider extending the lease or allowing British administration thereafter. Britain eventually agreed to transfer the entire colony to China upon the expiration of that lease in 1997 after obtaining guarantees to preserve its systems, freedoms, and way of life for at least 50 years.

The existing geopolitical context could not have yielded any other result. Therefore, I really do not grasp how the protesters could gain anything or achieve anything by confronting the political bureaucracy in Beijing, who are merely restoring the unity of one China. I do not see any other option to hedge against a possible dislike of rule from Beijing, which is even quite premature, than to (belatedly) obtain a second passport.

Concerning Taiwan, I predict that Beijing will not remain patient forever either. Beijing will ultimately seek to recover their rebellious province:

In the case of the United States, the One-China Policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position."

I do not understand why anybody would seek to confront (or even humiliate) Beijing on these matters. Some political parties in Taipei are playing with fire in that regard.

So, does this mean that hidden in the definition of God is a clue that morality actually has no justification? — TheMadFool

Without a complete set of extensive system-wide premises, which will then generate a system, i.e. a theory with its conclusions/theorems, this kind of questions will attract mostly arbitrary answers; the reason being that the system is not only insufficiently specified and constrained, but also insufficiently equipped with generating principles. There will not be enough commitments specified to successfully allow reasoning within that system.

It is like in number theory.

You need to axiomatize a sufficiently complete set of basic principles before it makes sense to do arithmetic and draw conclusions about such system. For example, you can look at what happens with a system of arithmetic without the axiom schema of induction, such as in Robinson arithmetic. However, if you take away too many construction rules, the arithmetic will either produce no results at all, or else, produce rather weak, arbitrary theorems.

So, pick more system-wide premises as to obtain a truly viable system. For example, pick the Torah or the Quran as a system, and then ask the question again. It is harder to do that because in that case you will have to learn more about the details in such system but it is also worthwhile because you will get much more meaningful results.

Reasoning outside system-wide premises may be quite typical in metaphysics, but it also explains why metaphysics (almost?) never achieves anything meaningful.

The lease was up and the handover is a done deal. The rock was going to be returned to China; and now it has. After expiration of the transitional special administrative regime, Hong Kong is supposed to become an ordinary Chinese municipality while everybody who lives there will become ordinary Chinese citizens. There is just not going to be any backpedalling on the provisions of the handover treaty. Even though the Brits, unlike the Portuguese in Macao, were politically not in a position to offer UK passports to every Hong Kong resident, the UK government has tremendously facilitated obtaining passports in Canada, Australia and New Zealand for Hong Kong residents. In that sense, anybody who wanted to leave the rock has had ample opportunity to do so.

I'm interested to hear what others think about this. — Wallows

The lease was up and the Brits were going to leave. Maggie negotiated endlessly to make the handover as smooth as possible. In my opinion, she did a brilliant job. For internal political reasons, she could not provide UK passports to every Hong Kong resident but she made sure that her flagship Commonwealth dominions, i.e. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand took in whoever felt like leaving the crown colony. The rock was simply going to be returned to the rulers in Beijing. The Brits nor their American overlord are going to renege on the handover treaty. No way. It is a done deal. The protesters can protest as much as they want but after expiration of the special administrative regime Hong Kong is slated to become merely one of the so many Chinese municipalities while everybody there will just become an ordinary Chinese citizen. Beijing is obviously not going to cave it. If the rebellious crowd keeps going on, sooner or later the Red army will restore law and order and lock up the most recalcitrant elements in countryside re-education camps, of which China undoubtedly has ample left from the Cultural Revolution. In my opinion, the protesters will achieve nothing at all.

What is your definition of a mean person or someone being mean? — schopenhauer1

Differences between American and British English: mean

• In the U.S., mean usually describes someone or something that is unkind, cruel, or violent: "It’s mean of you to ignore her.That’s a mean trick!"
• In the U.K., mean usually describes someone who is not generous or does not like spending money: "He’s too mean to give a large donation."

Is being a mean person a moral flaw, just a personality quirk, or something else? — schopenhauer1

It is a negative impression that one person has about the behaviour of another person. I think that it requires an incident in which that person has misbehaved. But then again, it does not mean that this person is always misbehaved. It is possible to morally judge an incident, as we have witnessed it, but it is much more difficult to judge a person with all his past and future behaviour.

Still, better safe than sorry. If someone has done something really objectionable to you (or someone else), I understand that you decide to avoid dealing with that person in the future.

Massive social mobilization would probably be required. Because of the economic impact of the policies that are now required, we're looking at the equivalent of a global communist revolution. — Echarmion

Anything that further increases the power or even just the credibility of the ruling political class is not desirable. I don't trust them, climate change or not.

The argument went like this — Ferzeo

A legitimate morality is a complete axiomatic system with system-wide premises. Producing theorems outside the confines of a complete theory is not supported. You cannot cherry pick unconnected premises that support your conclusion and next time check pick other ones, because then you can always prove anything you want.

Furthermore, that practice is not difficult enough. Everybody and their little sister can do that. Watch out when someone seemingly solves a difficult question using an utmost simple approach. If it is too good to be true, it invariably is. The purpose of doing that is almost always to mislead and to manipulate the unwashed masses. They will believe anything anyway.

If law books are not continually updated to keep up with advancements in technology, human knowledge, and loopholes, then they are irrelevant. — philrelstudent

It is probably the opposite. If laws have to be continually updated, then they are most likely wrong in the first place. For example, we have not updated Pythagoras' theorem for over 2500 years now, and there is no expectation that we ever will.

What does it mean when you are incessantly bug fixing?
What does it mean when you do not need to do any bug fixing at all?

The typical argument against religion is very short sighted. Not believing in a particular religion is very much like not playing tennis. Play football instead, or whatever. Get a life!

Like "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"? No meaning? I though proofs need to be meaningful. — TheMadFool

The justification has to be purely syntactic. I am currently still looking into what it means for alternative functions F(x):

ψ ↔ F(°#(ψ)) is provable in T

Since it should work for any function F(x), I think that the secret to a proper interpretation of this lemma can be found by looking at alternative choices for F(x). The following stackexchange question also asks for alternative examples, but I find the answers not particularly satisfactory. Maybe there are better links for this?

Isn't true but unprovable a contradiction? — TheMadFool

There is something very syntactic about the proof. The starting point is the diagonal lemma, which says:

• °x is the numeric encoding of number x
• #(θ) is the numeric encoding of formula θ

Lemma:

For each formula F with one free variable in the theory T, there exists a sentence ψ such that:

ψ ↔ F(°#(ψ))

is provable in T.

If we now look at the provability function B(x) which accepts the encoding of any sentence and returns yes/no if it is provable, we can see that it has a strange "corner case". By choosing F(x)=~B(x), we obtain the following proposition:

ψ ↔ ~B(°#(ψ)) is provable in T

The sentence ψ is not provable in T, because that is exactly what the expression says. So, this "corner case" sentence is true. This issue is caused by the diagonal lemma, which insists that each one-variable formula in the theory must have a fixed point.

The proof for the diagonal lemma itself is also purely syntactic. It is the result of just symbol manipulation. The final result may give a semantic impression, but Gödel's theorem is also purely syntactic.

The only expanation for this phenomenon which makes sense to me is a psychological one. — Daniel C

"Fitra" or "fitrah" (Arabic: فطرة‎; ALA-LC: fiṭrah), is the state of purity and innocence Muslims believe all humans to be born with. Fitra is an Arabic word that is usually translated as “original disposition,” “natural constitution,” or “innate nature.” According to Islamic theology, human beings are born with an innate inclination of tawhid (Oneness), which is encapsulated in the fitra along with compassion, intelligence, ihsan and all other attributes that embody the concept of humanity.

I'm confused by this. Are you saying that we have no means to learn about the sexual behaviour and attitudes of women (or men?) and so much accept what we've been taught? — Michael

The three main, accredited knowledge-justification methods are:

• axiomatic (logic)
• scientific (experimental testing)
• historical (witness-deposition corroboration of alleged facts)

As soon as you stray from those, your justification will be attacked and rejected on those grounds alone. Only few conclusions on the subject of sexuality can be reached by experimental testing. In my impression, most propositions in the subject will be conjectural. You can still try, but it is a hornet's nest.

You have the notorious example of Sigmund Freud and especially Alfred Adler whom Karl Popper so unceremoniously slags off in Science as Falsification:

Once, in 1919, I reported to him [Adler] a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, Although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."

It's clear you haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about. — Artemis

I already explained the epistemic conundrum surrounding this type of questions. It is obvious that, in classical epistemic terms, everybody is merely conjecturing on the matter.

In absence of formal knowledge-justification methods, we can still fall back, however, on traditional transmission of knowledge. Why do primitive tribes know that a particular type of fruit is poisonous? Well, because their elders transmitted that to them, who got it from their own elders, ad nauseam.

The traditional view, as transmitted for millennia (as far as can be checked), on premarital sex, i.e. the "cock carousel", is very, very negative. I can confirm with you that here in SE Asia, most people consider that practice to be avoided at all cost. People living at over ten thousand miles from each other, independently from each other, transmitted that view for thousands of years.

With so many questions epistemically undecidable, I believe that the traditional transmission methods of knowledge are seriously underrated. In the end, these cultures survived for thousands of years, if not longer, while there is no reason to believe that modern western decadence will last even for just one more century. I think that it will be game over long before that.

You have a strange view of women's sexuality. They can enjoy it for its own sake just as men can. — Michael

With 17 times less testosterone in their blood, women obviously do have a different sexuality. It is incomparable, actually. Their sexuality is obviously less "urgent", while potential consequences are much more serious. Therefore, the idea that there would be no difference between male and female sexuality amounts to ignoring pretty much the essence of the matter.

Well, if you have any evidence whatsoever for any of that, it would certainly make an interesting read. — Isaac

There is a lot of literature about the "cock carousel". Google search has a lot of hits: https://www.google.com/search?q=cock+carousel . There are also other search terms that are more neutral and that will yield similar literature.

The main issue in this subject is that experimentally testing anything is not possible.

It is like experimentally testing that hiv causes aids. You see, it is absolutely possible to inject 1024 individuals with the hiv virus, check out what happens next, and then faithfully record what you have seen. It can obviously be done, even trivially, but they will either not do it, or else, they will do it, but not publish the test report. Truly scientific evidence is most likely illegal.

It is also possible to collect all kinds of numbers, and to speculate about why these numbers are the way they are, but that practice is not a legitimate substitute for experimental testing. This kind of questions do not belong to the scientific epistemic domain. This kind of questions is out of reach of any knowledge-justification method. In that sense, you are simply meant to believe what you want to believe about it.

... not telling them they're too stupid to decidewhat they do with their own bodies ... — Isaac

Well, in my impression young girls actually are indeed too stupid for that. Furthermore, they get badly manipulated by school and media into doing things that they will bitterly regret later on.

In a situation where men have seventeen times more testosterone in their bodies than women, access to sex is a traded by women in exchange for something they want. Ultimately, they will end up wanting commitment. However, if the girl has given out sex to previous men without requiring their commitment, then the next one will use that fact to demand commitment-free sex too ("Why all of them and not me?"). Therefore, as soon as they have sex with one man, it becomes increasingly difficult to demand commitment in return. That phenomenon is known as hopping from cock to cock on the cock carousel. Commitment-free sex is an ambush for young girls.

If a girl wants to get anything valuable or even meaningful out of sex, she will have to withhold it until she can somehow land a good deal. Unfortunately, she will have to do that at a time when she is too young to know how to do that. So, without parents and family assisting her, she will generally not be able to land a good deal but end up on the cock carousel instead.

Furthermore, cock-carousel veterans mostly end up single and alone in their late thirties, with three or four decades of solitude ahead of them. They live off antidepressants and alcohol, typically in that order.

At one end we have the doctor/lawyer, enthusiastic, enjoying every bit of his work and well paid and at the other end are people with broken dreams working donkey jobs and all they want is the money so that they can pay the bills. — TheMadFool

The amount of money you make, matters way less than how you manage your income/expense streams.

Someone who saves up 25% of his monthly income [m] will after [n] months end up with a buffer of [n*m*0.25] from which he can live [n*m*0.25/(0.75*m)] months = [n/3] months.

So, if you do that for 5 years, you will have a runway of 60/3=20 months, meaning that you do not financially need your job for approx. a year and a half. The length of your runway does not depend on how much you make but on what proportion of your income that you manage to save.

Runway calculations (and burn rate) are essential in startup situations (=following your dreams).

Therefore, it is primarily a question of self-discipline. A lot of superfluous spending is done in imitation of others. Do not imitate them. You simply do not need most of what you spend your money on.

First is retroduction, the formulation of a plausible hypothesis. — aletheist

Ha, but there is no mechanical procedure for discovering a testworthy pattern. That is where other, unknown mental faculties kick in. What procedure would Einstein have followed to discover his 1905 paper on special relativity? I don't think that even Einstein knew. Rationality seems to be the output product of something that cannot be described in language, which is a prerequisite for justification, which is itself the core characteristic of rationality. Hence, rationality is an output product of some process that is not rational at all.

The really annoying people in that debate are the ones who mistakenly believe that their particular views are universal. Those are usually the same people who agree that morality exists, but who cannot elucidate what exactly their own definite moral system would be. From there, they go on aggressively defending the alleged superiority of their non-system..

Will AI take all or most of jobs? Thoughts, opinions, criticisms? — Wallows

The idea that AI will "take most of jobs" conflates two mental activities. Let's for example look at the job of a mathematician:

(1) discovering a new theorem (and its proof)
(2) verifying the proof for a theorem

While the verification job can be described as an algorithm, the discovery job cannot. We do not know the procedural steps that John Nash followed to discover his game-equilibrium theorem. The output of his mental activity is rational but the mental activity itself was not.

The fundamental confusion is that people may indeed produce ample output that is rational but that humans themselves are not rational. Roger Penrose already pointed that out in 1989 in his book The Emperor's new mind.

What percentage of a job consists in executing a verification procedures versus discovering a new conclusion/theorem?

People drastically underestimate the amount of discovery involved in a job. "How can I help you?" is a question that will often lead to trying to discover something. It will rarely lead to merely executing a predetermined verification procedure.

Survival in nature strongly favours adaptability and therefore discovery over predetermined verification procedures. A life form that can only execute predetermined procedures would not simply not even survive in nature.

Humanity manages to introduce a good amount of predictability into its own environment but can certainly not achieve that completely. Therefore, adaptability is still an important requirement for survival, and discovery will still trump the mere use of predetermined procedures, even in the tamed human society.

Most of our current beliefs are true, which is why we are generally able to get around successfully in the world, but we cannot know for sure that any one in particular is true. — aletheist

In my opinion, all of our current beliefs about the real, physical world are resilient Platonic-cave shadows. They are really good at resisting falsification by experimental testing. However, they have no definite connection with the unknown Theory of Everything (ToE), which is the holy grail, i.e. the unknown true belief. If we knew that connection, then we would also know the ToE. A resilient Platonic-cave shadow is eminently suitable as justification but it is still not (correspondence-theory) true. It is merely an excellent heuristic.

I am acting under a moral theory that, more than believing it should be universal, I believe it is universal for the example that I gave. And as I mentioned throughout both my first two posts, I don’t believe all morality is universal but specifically for the example that I worked with in the post that is what I will subscribe to. — username

Two systems could have one or more common rules but still generate substantially different outcomes. In that sense, a single rule out of context does not say particularly much.

One example would be the system of Presburger arithmetic. With only addition defined, it is complete. With only multiplication defined, it is also complete. With both simultaneously defined, it is incomplete. (Highly counter-intuitive, isn't it?) Therefore, saying anything about the rule for addition or for multiplication, outside context, is not particularly meaningful.

It is like discussing the steering wheel for a car in absence of the remainder of the car. Systems are typified by the interconnectedness of their rules. Therefore, you need to look at the complete list of rules in a moral system before drawing conclusions.

For immoral, I mean the opposite of moral and I feel like it would be insulting your intelligence to define what that is. If you do actually want me to define it check the first entry in Webster’s. — username

Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.

A morality is a system of rules, i.e. a theory. Therefore, the terms moral and immoral must always be understood in reference to such system/theory. If a system of morality specifies a list of forbidden behaviours, then immoral means behaviour in violation of this system. Which system is it about?

There is an interesting twist to this. Atheists generally reject religious systems of morality but pretty much never propose an alternative. From there on, they often construct theorems outside any possible theory, even though it is mathematically not allowed to do that. Hence, the essential question: Within the confines of which theory are you operating?

And no, "no theory" is not a legitimate theory.

Define 'meaning' first — Bartricks

There is a definition possible for the term "definition". The definition for term X is a predicate function that accepts arbitrary input S and will return yes, if S is an instance of X, and no, if it is not.

So, the term "definition" refers to a purely mechanical procedure that can distinguish between members and non-members of a class. So, a definition is also a set membership function.

The term "purely mechanical" is a synonym for "objective" in this context. The only reliable way of guaranteeing objectivity is to hand over the input data and the algorithm to a machine. If that is not possible, then such classification could in fact be subjective, i.e. dependent on the opinion of the person carrying out the classification.

There are weaker meta-definitions possible, but they tend to be less effective in stamping out ambiguity or in guaranteeing objectivity.

I think that the problem of the meta-definition is indeed an interesting one.

What is justification if not proof? — TheMadFool

If only proof were justification, then we would have no justification at all for empirical propositions.

Proof, on the other hand is complete, 100%, justification - it's impossible to deny the truth that a proof supports. — TheMadFool

Yes, but proof never provides a truth about the real, physical world.

A proof is 100% justification for a proposition about an abstract, Platonic world by demonstrating that it necessarily follows from its construction logic. To do that for the real, physical world, we would need to know its construction logic, which we don't.

Anything empirical will have to be justified using substantially less strict justification than formal proof, such as the absence of counterexamples.

Do you agree with me? In other words I'm saying that justifications are not actually 100% sufficient to establish truth but a proof is 100% sufficient to do that. — TheMadFool

Yes, agreed, if it were possible to do that, but it isn't. Since proof cannot be provided for statements about the real, physical world, there is no proof for correspondence-theory truth. Hence, proof does not lead to a real-world truth.

And what I am doing is not easy. If you think it is, just construct a refutation of my argument. — Bartricks

The meaning of your argument depends on the meaning of the terms that it uses. By not strictly defining these terms first, you refuse to make a commitment as to what these terms mean in your argument. The result of doing that, is that your argument does not necessarily mean anything in particular. How could I refute an argument which could have lots of different meanings? Which arbitrary meaning would it be about?

When you precisely define terms, you will discover that it is actually quite hard to discover a non-trivial conclusion that logically connects them. It is certainly not possible to do that on the fly, just like that, between breakfast and lunch. That kind of statements tend to be named after the first person who discovered them. That is how hard it typically is to do that.

There is simply not enough commitment in what you say. You would have to take a real risk by precisely defining every term you use in your argument.

look up 'Socrates fallacy' — Bartricks

So, Geach's misconception becomes an excuse for not having to define essential terms in a proposition? It is trivially easy to connect the one ambiguous term to the other and then conclude whatever you want.

Things of value are hard and take serious effort. Otherwise, everybody and their little sister can do it; and that is not progress. When it is just too easy to do what you are doing, then we must safely conclude that it has no value.

Put in to a simple argument form, this would read:

1. Human life is inherently good
2. If something is inherently good, then that thing has inherent value
3. If something has inherent value, then destroying that thing, while in your right mind, is objectively immoral.
4. Therefore, ending a human life (aka murder), while in your right mind, is objectively immoral. — username

When considering the terms that you use in your argument: "good", "inherently", "value", "objectively", "immoral", the very first question that springs to mind is: How do you even define these terms? If you do not define these terms first, then how do you know that you know what you are talking about?

In my opinion, it is simply not allowed to arbitrarily connect these terms with logical connectors without extensively and unambiguously defining them first.

All of this is a throwback to that Platonic dialogue between Socrates and Meno, in which Meno went on and on about "virtue". When Socrates asked him to explain what exactly he meant by "virtue", Meno ended up having to admit that he did not know what he was talking about.

Therefore, your simplistic argument form is very, very pre-Socratic. Your simplistic argument ignores almost 2500 years of learning why it does not make sense to do that.

There was a thread started a bit more than a year ago by a man speculating that technological advances in the near future will make it possible for women to give birth without men. — T Clark

Asexual reproduction is a type of reproduction by which offspring arise from a single organism, and inherit the genes of that parent only; it does not involve the fusion of gametes, and almost never changes the number of chromosomes. Asexual reproduction is the primary form of reproduction for single-celled organisms such as archaea and bacteria. Many plants and fungi sometimes reproduce asexually.

Instead of progress it rather looks like a throwback to the level of bacteria.

Humanity is a non-human technology. Well, life in general is a non-human technology. Saying anything that is provable about life means that it necessarily follows from the unknown construction logic, i.e. the real blueprint, of life. So, real progress would come from answering the question if it is even possible to discover that blueprint? To illustrate his understanding, this person could, for example, throw dead organic material in a glass and make it come to life. There are other things he should be able to achieve to illustrate the soundness of his purported blueprint, such as growing an artificial arm or a leg and reattach it to living body.

Fiddling with artificially-fabricated sperm without having a copy of the blueprint of life sounds quite dangerous to me. It is probably even more dangerous than inundating the market with opioids ...

But then again, I don't really care, because every misbehaviour tends to be its own punishment. I will just be laughing when it predictably goes wrong again.

By definition, it assumes that a Deity can do or be, both logical and illogical or possible and impossible things. Those unresolved paradox's are clues to the probability of that description or idea, and can be reasonably inferred as such. Good points!! — 3017amen

What escapes me is why people who ask that kind of questions stubbornly refuse to learn from the history of Russell's paradox.

1) They are incredibly ignorant but they always know everything better.
2) They draw utterly dumb conclusions about religion.

Some people are simply beyond repair ...

And yes, as others have said, you can't choose your sexual orientation. — S

There is still a difference between sexual orientation and engaging in hate speech on the other gender. I have never heard gay men saying hateful things about women, irrespective of the fact that they don't fancy them sexually. There seems to be a real need to rein in the lesbian hate speech on men.

What is justification if not proof? — TheMadFool

All proofs are justifications, but not all justifications are proofs.

Proof means that a statement necessarily follows from the construction logic of its universe. We do not know the construction logic of the real, physical world. So, we cannot prove anything about it. Therefore, real-world knowledge rests on weaker justification. For example, science rests on the lack of counterexamples ("falsificationism") as justification (on the condition that you really tried to look for them).

Why do we need justification if not to establish truth? — TheMadFool

No, justification is a goal in itself. It turns the belief into a justified belief, i.e. knowledge.

There is no knowledge that is correspondence-theory true. If there is proof, then it is not about the real, physical world. If it is about the real, physical world, then there could still be counterexamples waiting to be discovered.

Hence, knowledge of the truth does not exist.

This does not mean, however, that other, unknown mental faculties cannot be privy to the truth. Still, we are not able to justify knowledge about them. Hence, that question is fundamentally undecidable.

As a point of clarification, this argument is not seeking to feminize God but rather to view God as a genderless being. — Bridget Eagles

If God were male, then God would be involved in sexual reproduction. Why else do two sexes exist? That means that God would be meant to have a wife and children. The Quran strictly rejects that view. The Quran insists that God has absolutely NO wife and NO children:

Quran 6:100. Allah is the creator of the heavens and the earth. How could He have a son when He does not have a wife? He created all things and He is all-knowing.

Therefore, in Islam, the concept of gender simply does not apply to God. Hence, in Islam god is indeed viewed as being genderless.

Heterosexual relationships, even in the modern-day, illustrate vast disparities in the gender roles between man and the woman. — Bridget Eagles

In the animal kingdom, male and female animals always have different roles. If that were not the case, there would be no point in having two sexes. It does indeed not make sense to participate in sexual reproduction, if you object to its very nature.

Participation is not mandatory.

Everywhere across the animal kingdom, males are made to overcome serious hurdles in order to gain the privilege of sexual reproduction. Females can just walk away from sexual reproduction, and they often do. In human society, females are not required to participate either, if they do not need any financial contribution from a male for themselves or any offspring.

On the other hand, men are not required to make any financial contribution to women who do not need them; also not through government funding. Otherwise, society becomes based on contradictory principles.

Women who say that they do not need a man, often mean that they will still get money from the government anyway. And where does the government get the money from? Mostly from the men, of course.

In a society where women claim that they do not need men, for reasons of consistency, there is a compelling requirement to prevent the government from appropriating resources, as to strictly prevent government-controlled redistribution of male resources to female recipients who do not need males.

Is this intentional? — Shamshir

No, merely syntactically:

S1=true $\wedge$ S2=$\neg$S1 $\Rightarrow$ S2=false

Because:

S2=$\neg$S1 $\Rightarrow$ S2=$\neg$true $\Rightarrow$ S2=false

S2 syntactically resolves to "false" by virtue of a succession of permissible find & replace operations. No need for using additional propositional rewrite rules.

If you mean to ask if it is intensional logic (or some kind of modal logic):

Intensional logic is an approach to predicate logic that extends first-order logic, which has quantifiers that range over the individuals of a universe (extensions), by additional quantifiers that range over terms that may have such individuals as their value (intensions). The distinction between intensional and extensional entities is parallel to the distinction between sense and reference.

No, because the expression does not make use of special-purpose quantifiers.

I am interested to discover whether or not there is a logic that can be constructed which renders the statement: '"belief" is not a virtue as true'. I intuit it to be true, and intuit there is a logic that must exist which proves this to be true. — A Gnostic Agnostic

Logic does not allow for discovering correspondence-theory truth. Only observation can attempt to do that.

Logic does something completely different. You start by assuming that particular statements are true. From there, you can use logic to derive that other connected statements are also true.

Therefore, you can always logically conclude that "belief is not a virtue" simply by assuming it.

If I am wrong, the pursuit of whatever is true is the most important thing. — A Gnostic Agnostic

There is a syntactical problem with that statement. Imagine that S1 is true. Then S2=$\neg$S1 is false. So, by pursuing the falsehood of S2 you attain exactly the same goals as by pursuing the truth of S1. In logic, "true" and "false" do not correspond to morally "good" and "evil". There is no such mapping.

There is a big warning in the wikipedia page on boolean algebra against assuming that "true" and "false" mean anything more than arbitrary symbols in their algebraic structure:

There is nothing magical about the choice of symbols for the values of Boolean algebra. We could rename 0 and 1 to say α and β, and as long as we did so consistently throughout it would still be Boolean algebra, albeit with some obvious cosmetic differences.

But suppose we rename 0 and 1 to 1 and 0 respectively. Then it would still be Boolean algebra, and moreover operating on the same values. However it would not be identical to our original Boolean algebra because now we find ∨ behaving the way ∧ used to do and vice versa.

Not until you justify something - say something that addresses my argument. — Bartricks

I think moral values are demonstrably subjective. — Bartricks

The term "moral values" describes rules which decide what behaviour is permissible and what is not. If these rules can be expressed in language, then they can be shared. At that point, they become shared values between people who subscribe to the same rules.

Only a subject can value something — Bartricks

"To value" in this context means "to accept a rule". If the rule is expressed in language, then even a machine can accept it. There is no need for a human subject for that. Morality expressed in (formal) language as a system of rules can perfectly be used by a machine to determine what behaviour is permissible and what is not.

What else than "to accept a rule" can "to value" mean in the context of morality? Is there any reason why you would deny that a moral "value" is simply a moral "rule"?