6 ms·

Here's the irony. In science and therefore reality as we know it nothing can be proven to be true. Things can only be falsified in science. This occurs becaus

Here's the irony. In science and therefore reality as we know it nothing can be proven to be true. Things can only be falsified in science. This occurs because if we make 10 million observations that verify a hypothesis we still haven't proven anything to be true because there always exists the possibility that a subsequent observation falsifies the entire hypothesis. While we can't prove anything in reality is real, we can prove things to be true in mathematics. Proof is the domain of math and logic not science. Therein lies the irony. We don't know if anything is real in science and therefore reality as we know it but we can verifiably know whether things are real in the universe of math. It really puts the question in perspective: what does it even mean to be real?

bandie91 3y ago
> what does it even mean to be real? exactly the question which has to be answered before answer "is X real?"
Warwolt 3y ago
But this just isn't the case, for your claim to be true we would have to be constrained to only do _inductive_ reasoning. When we do _deductive_ reasoning, and we feel as though the reasoning has been done correctly, then we know something _assuredly_. Mathematics and empirical science are very different in this respect, that much of mathematics is purely deductive.
- corethree 3y ago
  Inductive reasoning is by nature probabilistic so it can't prove anything. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning The first paragraph mentions this. As science is statistical in nature inductive reasoning by being probabilistic suffers from the same problem.
  - Warwolt 3y ago
    Your claim was that we can only know about reality through inductive reasoning, and this is the part I'm disputing, not that science itself is not inductive. Mathematical reasoning is deductive, and mathematics is part of reality.
    - corethree 3y ago
      > Your claim was that we can only know about reality through inductive reasoning, and this is the part I'm disputing, not that science itself is not inductive. My claim still stands resolute in dispute of your claim. You can't know anything through probability/inductive reasoning. At best you can say something is "probably" true, but even this is a limit that's impossible to reach. If you observe something 1 billion times and that observation confirms your hypothesis, you never know if the next 10 trillion observations can deny your hypothesis completely. So even saying something is "probably true" can't even be done. Nothing can be truly known in science and therefore reality as we know it. >Mathematical reasoning is deductive, and mathematics is part of reality. It's only part of reality in the same way a fantasy novel is part of reality. It just so happens that it matches our observations. But observations are not always the same or consistent, how will you verify logic and math consistently hold true in reality? You would recursively use stats and science to determine it's veracity which suffers from the same issue as I stated above... you can't prove anything to be true with science. Math and logic is an axiom of reality. We simply assume it to be true and there's no way to prove that it's true. But here's the kicker. EVEN if we assume science and logic to be true, we STILL can't prove anything to be true in reality. This is because of exactly what I'm talking about above... we can never know the true sample size of all possible observations... any amount of observations or samples we have is finite, but the universe is unknown and samples are potentially infinite. Therefore any sample could be 1/1000000000 of what's out there. I'm not making any of this up. This is real stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability Quotation from the article: "One of the questions in the scientific method is: how does one move from observations to scientific laws? This is the problem of induction. Suppose we want to put the hypothesis that all swans are white to the test. We come across a white swan. We cannot validly argue (or induce) from "here is a white swan" to "all swans are white"; doing so would require a logical fallacy such as, for example, affirming the consequent.[4]"

bandie91 3y ago

> what does it even mean to be real? exactly the question which has to be answered before answer "is X real?"

Warwolt 3y ago

But this just isn't the case, for your claim to be true we would have to be constrained to only do _inductive_ reasoning. When we do _deductive_ reasoning, and we feel as though the reasoning has been done correctly, then we know something _assuredly_. Mathematics and empirical science are very different in this respect, that much of mathematics is purely deductive.

corethree 3y ago
Inductive reasoning is by nature probabilistic so it can't prove anything. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning The first paragraph mentions this. As science is statistical in nature inductive reasoning by being probabilistic suffers from the same problem.
- Warwolt 3y ago
  Your claim was that we can only know about reality through inductive reasoning, and this is the part I'm disputing, not that science itself is not inductive. Mathematical reasoning is deductive, and mathematics is part of reality.
  - corethree 3y ago
    > Your claim was that we can only know about reality through inductive reasoning, and this is the part I'm disputing, not that science itself is not inductive. My claim still stands resolute in dispute of your claim. You can't know anything through probability/inductive reasoning. At best you can say something is "probably" true, but even this is a limit that's impossible to reach. If you observe something 1 billion times and that observation confirms your hypothesis, you never know if the next 10 trillion observations can deny your hypothesis completely. So even saying something is "probably true" can't even be done. Nothing can be truly known in science and therefore reality as we know it. >Mathematical reasoning is deductive, and mathematics is part of reality. It's only part of reality in the same way a fantasy novel is part of reality. It just so happens that it matches our observations. But observations are not always the same or consistent, how will you verify logic and math consistently hold true in reality? You would recursively use stats and science to determine it's veracity which suffers from the same issue as I stated above... you can't prove anything to be true with science. Math and logic is an axiom of reality. We simply assume it to be true and there's no way to prove that it's true. But here's the kicker. EVEN if we assume science and logic to be true, we STILL can't prove anything to be true in reality. This is because of exactly what I'm talking about above... we can never know the true sample size of all possible observations... any amount of observations or samples we have is finite, but the universe is unknown and samples are potentially infinite. Therefore any sample could be 1/1000000000 of what's out there. I'm not making any of this up. This is real stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability Quotation from the article: "One of the questions in the scientific method is: how does one move from observations to scientific laws? This is the problem of induction. Suppose we want to put the hypothesis that all swans are white to the test. We come across a white swan. We cannot validly argue (or induce) from "here is a white swan" to "all swans are white"; doing so would require a logical fallacy such as, for example, affirming the consequent.[4]"