Knowing whether Christianity makes better people or not is hard to decide on because atheists will judge their friends more carefully than a Christian

It's hard to judge people.

Zen experience a Vision of the Cosmos and Hindus have Vision of Eros (for spirituality itself). Atheism is spiritual in a way because it's Buddhism without transcendent meditation. Atheists have all kinds of cool ways of looking at the world.

Union with God is the last state Christians say. But there is Vision of Agape when you live in spiritual love with everyone (a non-dual state) and mystics see a pre-vision of it. Buddhist sometimes say this too. People who have been in love know something of this

I started a book called The Protestant Mystics today to get some thoughts on these questions. I don't think any tradition knows everything and that is why Indian philosophers have the analogy of the elephant

...and your opinion of this view? — Banno

I don't think doubting that you are doubting is healthy. People try lots of techniques to free their mind but I doubted that I doubted one time earlier this year behind a restaurant and logic seemed to slip away and spirituality didn't enter my brain so I don't have a high opinion of doubts anymore. Keeping a balance between faith and reason can be a problem sometimes but doubting as hard as Descartes leads to some ridiculous arguments

Reality seems maybe to be more than it seems. Does materialism make too much or too little of reality. The fundamental part is how we see reality at each moment. We understand one thing at time with one part of our mind and many things, maybe everything, with the other

I wouldn't mind seeing something a bit more concrete than this obviously self-refuting edict.

Have you a proper citation? — Banno

https://historyofphilosophy.net/sextus

https://historyofphilosophy.net/pyrrho

https://historyofphilosophy.net/skeptics-academy

Those are the interesting videos I first heard of it in (not a perfect citation, sorry), but I've seen writers on this forum say that they doubt that they doubt. It's an attempt to break out of logic and find intuition. On a logic grid it's contradictory, but seen through a different way it might make sense. Intuition and logic are both important. "Intelligence is recognitive: it cognises an intuition, but only because that intuition is already its own." Hegel

The Skeptics of Greece may have been using this kind of logic as a koan

Godel's numbering might not apply to the real world. The real world is mathematical but there might be a theory of everything in term of physics. If there are things we can't prove in mathematics, we at least knows math is true for us. For some Christians God gives us actual grace for our free will to renovate itself and return to it's former pure state and the merits of Jesus make us innocent before the justice of God. So man becomes somewhat divine Lutherans from Jacob Boehme to Hegel emphasized that God was "all in all", or in a more exact sense, was "everything in everything". All religions describe a union with the divine and if our thoughts can be raised up and the experience of the divine and is intellectual in a sense, it's possible our thoughts can be moved where everything is seen as a total unity of truth. This was my concern with Godel. Perhaps Godel helps us gain this vision, idn

I already have read that. The numbers are random and don't form real equation. I was asking for Gödel's theorems stated as verbal paradoxes like Russell's paradox. That way I can explain like I can do with Russell's. Maybe Gödel proves something but it's only about human cognition. The point of my thread was that higher species know things in better ways and spirituality can lead to thinking beyond human thought. How this works with Gödel's theorems is what I was wanting to talk about

You provided a statement and have not spoken yet of the internal logic that makes it a proof

Russell's paradox is interesting philosophically, but I showed how this paradox can give two answers (both "in a sense"). Everyone has different explanation on how Gödel's arguments are supposed to work, probably from the nature of the case. If you disagree on logic's relation to math, then start with what you think are the logical tools of Gödel's theorem

Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself. If we say no it is because you get put the set inside itself. What is in the set is too different from the set. Now we can say yes in that the set could contain it's items in itself and itself as well be in a different way

Godel and Russell both had many ideas that were mathematical but had an element of the science of logic in how they move. What Russell said in your quote is what I was saying. Sets that contain themselves are not objects of mathematics

Moves I've made by Hegel in philosophy have been applied to mathematics where they probably don't don't belong. The logical empiricists were stuck on things like "the black raven paradox" because they couldn't figure it out in their language. Russell himself said that after writing Principia Mathematica his mind was unclear on other subjects for many years latter. When you study one subject, it is supposed to increased your prowess in others.

What “tripped up” Frege was Russell's paradox, not the barber paradox. — Amalac

Russel said he took the squiggly part of the barber paradox and used it with sets

If a barber shaves only those who do not shave themselves then the barber doesn't shave himself. That's obvious. If it's stated in more complex terms, it is confusing two concepts as being one and needs normal language to clarify. That a professor of mathematics (Frege) got tripped up by this shows how poorly thought out his program was

I told you what I thought of it. It does not mean anything mathematically because it refers back on itself, a move of logic, not math.

it is a theorem of first order logic that there is not an x such that for all y, y bears relation R to x if and only if y does not bear relation R to y. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Is this what you were referring too? It is not math but philosophy. There is nothing A unless B does not have a relation with itself? This what I'm talking about. Godel loops his arguments. Math and logic are different disciplines and combining them is a questionable enterprise. On the ladder of knowledge 1 plus 1 equaling two seems to come before the logicism used to prove this by Russell and Whitehead. So maybe their 700 pages on this is nonsense, a putting of the prior after what should come latter. And maybe Godel's ideas have the same problem: too much application of logic to math

So you are saying that Godel's examples of things that are unprovable do not require a loop in them? As I see it, unprovable things can be 1) axoims which we understand intuitively as unprovable but which make sense ("common sense" comes in) as the basis of a system, or 2) propositions that are unprovable but which can be understood by intuition (thus knowledge is fully knowable), or 3) loopy statements like Russell's paradox that are really fallacious logically.

I am always willing to learn new things, but you wrote:

If P is a closed formula, then there is a system S such that P is an axiom for S. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Couldn't you just have said "systems have axioms"? That is all that says! This is my problem with the whole symbolic logic stuff. They get into problems and call things paradoxes because they don't converse with adult conversation language. We should be truly speaking about truths, not fitting them into structures which confuses matters. We have crazy people try to PROVE there is a God from modal logic ("ontological argument"). It's just ridiculous that people would even consider trying to do this. I think very fluidly and I don't get a pleasant sensation from a paradox that just reverts back on itself. And you say:

If a theory T is a consistent, recursively axiomatizable extension of Robinson arithmetic, then there is a sentence G in the language for T such that neither G nor ~G is a theorem of T. — TonesInDeepFreeze

In real human language, you are saying that a theory has a part of it is and is not a part of it. Again, key word is "recursive". I don't understand why anyone would want to think about logic eating itself like a snake eating its tail. That kind of stuff gives me a headache. It's not cool

Apparently even for you Gödel's theorem is hard to put into words. You can't provide what the theorem says, since you say I don't know it properly, in a few paragraphs. As I said, I've seen sources on this for years. I watched the Veratasium video two weeks ago and it said what I've heard everywhere else. My point in this thread is that if there are unprovable propositions, they don't exist in weird loopy ways but have a straightforward reason for why they are closer to axioms than from what is probable. When I studied Euclidean geometry in college our teacher kept telling us to see the golden thread in each proposition and how it runs from the first to the last. Russell's paradox is a different species of thinking. All it takes is a conversation to reveal what someone means if they present you with a paradox like that. It was a linguistic problem, not a logical one

Bertrand Russell was famous for his mathematical ideas. But his paradox is false. Group items together, make a circle around them, and you have a set. A set containing itself is just bizarre, coming from a desire for exotic knowledge, and yes mathematicians aren't perfect. What I said about Gödel was based on what the majority of people have said about from what I personally have seen. Someone needs a really good background in math to read his actual papers so most of us are getting our ideas from second hand sources. Anyway, you can't prove that a set can contain itself from math itself, so rejecting Russell's paradox is a good way to start in approaching Godel. A set containing itself IS self reference

Well if all I've studied on this is wrong then we have a similar situation as with Bell's theorem where there is no consensus whatsoever of what theyre about. I've watched all the videos I could find on it, read about it in books, and discussed it with people who have computer science degrees. What you are saying is that there is massive misinformation on this but then why haven't you written a couple paragraphs here saying what Gödel really did. I don't believe in self reference in math or logic but maybe you can make a presentation of it will be interesting and fruitful

Ok then

So we have the set of propositions that can be proved and are therefore true. We have the set of propositions that are not true. And we have the set that their truth value is undecidable. And we have a set of propositions which are true (do we know from intuition of axioms?) but unprovable.

Is it being said that within this infinity of unprovable propositions in math each proposition can be analyzed and their meanings understood? What prevents someone from finding the golden thread going thru such a proposition?

Gödel offered a proof that math is either inconsistent or incomplete and that the dilemma is undecidable. So unless math is bogus, there will be unproven propositions. I don't know which ones these are but zero in on some mentally for me. Now I ask "are these propositions actually axioms for something else or something else entirely?"

We can't prove axioms

Imagine some unprovable proposition. Can it be *understood* intuitively like axioms are and be taken as axioms?

I don't see Godel's ideas as consistent with finding THE truth — Gregory

And because the unprovable mathematical ideas would have to axioms known by intuition. If they are a connection of ideas and there is no way to get from one to the other, this blocks knowledge as a whole from find the truth of everything

Your way of thinking is contingent perhaps though, although it seems logical to you. Spiritual pursuits search for higher necessary knowledge and is still philosophy, actually is more philosophy than analytical philosophy.

Not everyone who comes to this forum is into analytical philosophy. You've called Hegel rubbish but some like him, as I do. He certainly thought every truth could be "sublated" until everything is known. If there will still be truths in mathematics that can't be proven, they will be seen as to why this is the case and the whole of truth can find a consistent point of rest. Even if we can't know every higher truth, there can be truth as a whole found in life. I don't see Godel's ideas as consistent with finding THE truth

What I don't like is people spouting about Godel's theorem without knowing what it is. If you're not up to finding out what Godel's theorem is then at least be up to saying so — TonesInDeepFreeze

Godel's theorems prove that, in the form in which we think now, mathematics is either inconsistent or has infinite propositions that can't be proven. It's undecidable which of these are true for Godel.

I don't see how someone can find this to be a satisfactory idea to rest in. Ideas of spiritually are not fairy dreams. They are some of the deepest thought you can have

What I've said only would make sense to someone who has thought spiritually

Through God they say we can know all truth through God himself as truth. So there won't be any abstract truth hidden but all understood under truth, beauty, and goodness. 1+1=2 will be understood in its relation to everything and understood on a meta level. Gödel was trying to find a way to make a line in between what can be known and what can not and whether his logic is loopy or sound, it doesn't take into consideration infused knowledge

If you want to post on this thread at least address what I say and if you don't like the idea of God at least be up to saying so

In Eastern Orthodox hesychasm they believe that the seat of the soul is in the belly button. They control the breath and the heart beat (as they pray the Jesus prayer) and force the mind/soul through the pre-frontal cortex, and allegedly out thru the nose so that divine Energy can enter. By this ability they are able to "see God" literally with their eyes they say. The Energies of God can communicate to the intellect although not with "...His essence, which exceeds even His uncreated energies, since this essence transcends all affirmation and all negation". So we will not think as God but with God, understanding everything that can be thought while remaining human. This is their religion. Godel was speaking about natural knowledge, not supernatural abilities

You think god knows the proofs of those statements for which there is no proof. — Banno

He can prove everything I imagine. He is logical perfectly atomized into simplicity, as theists might say. So 1) God's existence cannot be disproved, and 2) and you can't disprove that we can fully understand what God is. Therefore Godel's theorems only apply to human thinking while in a natural state and not to it embedded with the divine. Theists say the full explanation of reality must be a God who is embedded in everything and even closer to me than I am to myself because he is all around me, and in a sense even more myself than I am myself. The conclusion seems to be the nearer one get's to God, the less Godel logic fully applies. My favorite philosopher is Hegel, who say everything can become rational. He follows the mystical philosophy of Jacob Boehme. The Absolute has full knowledge of everything covering everything but in a higher manner

My point is that God, if he exists, knows of and knows the proof of everything. In a divine way of course. If the mystics are right who say we will fully understand God, then "Godel "logic" won't apply anymore to that state of mind although our natures would remain human. Is directly contrary to what Godel thought he had proved for all human thought? Is thinking as a human but with God's thought not covered by Godel's theorems?

How does the fact he had two arguments show that I was confused?? Only someone intellectually challenged could think such a thing. — Bartricks

Because you don't understand his argument for God. First he says in the 3rd Meditation that he has an idea of a perfect being. Then he says the substance in this idea must correspond to something. It can't correspond to the world because the world is not perfect. So God must have implanted this idea in him. THEN and only then does it go on latter to say the definition of God is that which must exist, which again contradicts what you say btw. So two arguments he gave. One from the substance of his idea (from intuition) and the other from a priori logic. Live and learn

You'd know that 'anything' includes destroying himself. — Bartricks

False. You don't know about theology

Also, please explain the difference between the argument for God in the Third meditation and the one in the Fourth. Thank

Why are you doing this? Is it not yet apparent to you that you're talking to someone who knows Descartes well and understands him far better than you do? You're like a parrot, just squawking things without understanding. — Bartricks

You misunderstood his third Meditation. He had two arguments for God.

Your rationalism will fail you. God can do anything whatsoever and at the same time cannot lower his power. You don't know of theology works

So Banno proved there is not God?

Either it is clear to you that there is reason to think that the senses are more reliable than the intellect, in which case you are relying on your intellect and demonstrate only that your intellect is not very great; or you think there is no reason whatsoever to think the senses are more reliable than the intellect, but believe it anyway. In which case you are just asserting things and not providing any evidence in support of them. — Bartricks

You're thinking in a line

Similarly, when Descartes says that God exists of necessity, he means that existence is essential to the idea of God, and can no more be separated from it than the idea of a lacking a wife can be taken away from the idea of a bachelor. — Bartricks

That is the argument in the 4th meditation. In the 3rd one who says the idea of God is so perfect that we can't have an idea of it without it existing. It goes from self-referencing thoughts to God. That is the foundation of the latter argument

If you knew your Descartes, you'd know that held to my (and Jesus') view of omnipotence - namely that it involves being able to do absolutely anything at all, without any restriction from logic. And if you could reason in a straight line then you'd know that he cannot think that God is incapable of taking himself out of existence, for that would be a restriction. Thus God is, by virtue of being omnipotent, capable of destroying himself. — Bartricks

This is a statement, not argument

So, 'God exists of necessity' should be understood de dicto, not de re. — Bartricks

Prove that Descartes meant this then