But math must involve some separate cognitive faculties than language use as in, doing some technical math work need not involve ordinary language at that level of technicality. — Manuel

Why? It's symbol system with a grammar and axioms. That's language. Ask a mathematician.

Ah. The easy question. — Manuel

Yes, I merely need a list of every object you think does, can, or must exist.

Mathematics being a language is metaphoric. It doesn't have the same properties of natural languages such as syntax, tenses, verbs, etc. as well as most aspects of ordinary language use. It's similar to calling cooking a "science". — Manuel

Aside from the way an explanation that 'mathematics isn't metaphoric' only further demonstrates the utility of analogy, in this case metaphor, in translating between languages and framing their contents as required, including mathematics, logic and whatever other formal system you care to define, mathematics does in fact have syntax, semantics, and whatever other equivalent you care to mention. The elements of our frameworks (in this case verbs, sentences and whatever else) are not particularly relevant for their comparative analysis; I can just simply define them as a set, or a set of functions perhaps, and then eventually we would be speaking the same language -- a mathematical one -- in which eventually my arguments become sufficiently acceptable. I don't happen to know your ontology, though, so I don't know which words you find to be the most 'factive' -- I have to guess from the center. And even if we decide this wasn't the case, the objects of mathematical study have no meaning without definitions (or direct demonstration, which is obviously not always possible), which are ultimately stated in natural language.

(Aside: Food science is a thing. :D)

Who says that someone can be completely justified in believing X? A person can be more or less justified in believing a proposition or an event, but absolute certainty is not attainable, with (perhaps) the exception of mathematics. — Manuel

I don't know who says that. And mathematics is just a language. It's certain to itself by definition.

Statements of the form, "a is justified to believe x", express a proposition where it's absolutely true or false that a is justified to believe x according to some certain z or the z that a is committed to. — Zophie

The absolutely is sarcastic for everyone except absolutists. I'm sort of implying that they are redundant because, as usual, it's only for their 'specialness' that this sentence needs to exist.

As I understand it, science is provisional, always subject to further revision. Common sense is different. .. But common sense can also change, as it has done in history. — Manuel

So what's the difference?

Sorry for bumping an older thread but this thought experiment presumes the thinker is not a zombie.

What does this mean to you in basic terms? — Shawn

Not a lot. I honestly often find mathematics to be irrelevant because it doesn't model things realistically.

I'm actually a proponent of 'post-truth' in that I don't accept authority for authority's sake and I also can't really think of a reason in particular to care about the USA since living there in the 00s.

Sorry I can't be your partner in this.. project.

A supposedly rational inference from many parameters to a single parameter isn't strictly permitted by the rules of any system. I think this has also been called a negative theology. To me that's pretty close to mystical.

Examples of systems? Like a formal example?

I have a Wittgensteinian interpretation of mysticism that is irreligious, if you'd like to hear my 0.02$.

If everything we can speak of is such that it's part of a system of parameters, and if those systems are such that there is always a conceivable parameter that is absent from these systems, then it is possible to infer there is always a single missing parameter.

Identify the parameter and you're potentially talking about religion. At least that's my take.

what is wrong with the argument that has the horns of the Trilemma as its premises and “Therefore no claim is justified” as it's conclusion? — Amalac

It's unrealistic. Propositions may be true/false but any actual proposition is defeasible.

why should the sceptic accept them then? — Amalac

I don't know, why should they? Because they do? Because they can?

I don't see a problem with the definition.

Surely you'd say that sceptical arguments such as the argument that uses Agrippa's Trilemma to conclude “therefore there are no proofs” is invalid. — Amalac

At face value, no. I would say it needs another element to make it properly analyzable, though.

How did you come to that conclusion? — Amalac

I didn't. It's set by the definitions of every well-defined system.

the actual nature of matter is ultimately indeterminate. — ernest meyer

Ye'. This is known. I think there is a chance you may be getting ahead of yourself.

I think the arguments of skeptics -- using those systems at least -- give trivial subjections to those systems that resolve to the thesis that not even logic can disprove logic, and that this is expected because it's a sign that the logic of those systems is true.

If a statement seems paradoxical then it's probably just a speech act in which the meaning is contextual, not definitive. Something like that.

You misunderstand. The question is not 'logic?' but 'which logic? (and for what?)'. :)

But you will never find a counter-example since you are attempting to falsify a timeless object. I can't verify the statement because, as I maintain, it has no intrinsic truth value and I assume verification is in the business of truthmaking.

I should clarify that the argument in the OP is not one for the conclusion that “proof does not exist” — Amalac

I'm merely suggesting that the method of deductive proof is generally trivial. In my humble opinion a skeptic may be better served by moving to a relativist model since that allows the following phrasing:

Skepticism says the truth of everything is doubtable to a skeptic, but if that is true, the truth of skepticism is doubtable to a skeptic, therefore skepticism says the truth of skepticism is doubtable to a skeptic because skepticism is doubtable to a skeptic (and that is a something, and every something is doubtable). All of this is trivially true. A positive phrasing reveals the absurdity of that kind of argument.

How would you verify the truth or falsity of the statement "I always lie"?

I'm assuming the modern, deductive meaning of proof, and yeah. Ultimately, it provides no new information. It rearranges what is already known. It's a method of translation, not of truth in the traditional sense. Speaking of translation, I don't know what Hume is talking about.

Should -- if you presume an argument from commitment is relevant.

Chomsky was a prolific user of media in saying that media deliberately falsifies explanations as propaganda, making himself a propagandist. — ernest meyer

If so, does this not just further demonstrate what he said was true? He would be the one to know.

I notice your explanation of there being proof prequires provability, which, like all deduction, involves a signal conversion to new rules that isn't licenced by the prior system. It is just given.

Those are the kind of tautologies I mean.

Cool but.. can't you prove anything from a negation?

If these philosophers believe the truth is a real thing, aren't they trying to refute a tautology? Why bother?

This is impossible to answer and I'm not sure what discoveries the mathematicians would have to make about cosmology that we didn't already know.

about 50% of respondants could not name the disease's major symptoms. — Tim3003

So what are they? And why do I need to know? More realistically, why do you know that I need to know?

"I always lie" contains no intrinsic true/false value. It's a paradox because people need it to be.

Actually I think for a lot of people the truth is at best unhelpful and at worst unhealthy.

What makes me so important that I should preside over other people's moral judgements?

A value system which recognizes that it is just a value system is at least an honest value system.

Thanks for the information. :)

Most of the chemical bonding energy of atoms is contained in relatively small concentration within electron orbitals, and this density of energy combined with the equation wt=d/f implies that since 'd' is extremely small while the 'f' value comprises most of matter's energy, 't' probably becomes minuscule also, and energetic matter apparently links up in a system of pervasive synchronicity at the nanoscale. To put it simply, much of atomic motion is coordinated almost instantaneously. — Enrique

How is this relevant to what I said? In any case I assume you're not interested in the process-oriented ontology which supposedly fixes the superposition.

The brain is an extremely concentrated ball of high energy electricity — Enrique

It is?

It participates in the same dynamic as atoms but on the macroscopic scale — Enrique

It exists?

Consciousness thus transcends principles belonging to the four dimensional substrate of motion called spacetime. — Enrique

Are you just picking theoretical components?

Spacetime-based concepts model certain macroscopic phenomena such as light and extremely large mass, but consciousness and quantum entanglement might surpass the parameters of these models according to 19th and early 20th century science. — Enrique

I see. So it's like some supremely spicy quantum consciousness thesis.

If I can give you an example of increasing energy -- a chemical reaction -- or a system in energetic equilibrium -- such as a body at rest -- what would that mean for your proof?

What is 'occupied space'? Matter? If energy and matter were equivalent states of information, what would that mean for your proof? And what exactly is time as opposed to spacetime, anyway?

You're talking about physics, but whose physics do you mean? The spookiness only happens to someone looking for the primacy of objects (in this case particles) in an object-oriented ontology.

Sorry, nothing like that. I just thought that it was trivial that values are without absolute intrinsic x parameterization in the context of anything. That the rational representation of the speed of light expressed by whatever formulae can be disproved or proved is a feat of deduction. Why, though?

Exactly, actually.

My definition of system isn't applicable here. I take them to be basic.

You may like to know that everything is circular eventually. For ethics this happens rather quickly since ethics is a discipline in which the object of study apparently has no known location.

For whom in what time and which place?

But I believe on some level he is begging the question. — John Chlebek

Everything does this eventually. Science just tends to be more predictable.

For the mathematically inclined, does the following manipulation of equations suggest that quantized matter lacks a speed limit traditionally gauged as the velocity of light? — Enrique

No.

So are values of time, distance, frequency and wavelength completely without intrinsic parameterization in the context of current physics? — Enrique

No.

Do basic equations intimate an absence of dimensional constants, whether of space, rate or acceleration? — Enrique

Pardon?

what do we do with terms like "irrational" or "sensible", etc.? Sure, you can pick out edge cases and say that is irrational, but outside these cases, one of these words are easy to develop. — Manuel

I understand this is an argument from gradualism but I do believe it can be applied to any definition. In which case don't see the problem with starting from basics. 'Rational' can be coherently communicated. 'Sensible' can be physically grounded. If there is any implication that we 'must' refer to proper references like dictionaries to define our terms then I doubt this is necessary for most discourses.