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A God-like being possesses all positive properties A5 Necessary existence is a positive property Oh, yeah, that's not circular at all...

• zamalek 13y ago
  > He does not extensively discuss what positive properties are, but instead he states a few reasonable (but debatable) axioms that they should satisfy. Various slightly different versions of axioms and definitions have been considered by Godel and by several philosophers who commented on his proof. Such is the world of philosophy. Remember that some of the greatest scientists and mathematicians lived when all of it was just philosophy. Philosophy is a training exercise to think imaginatively and some of our best science stems from an imaginative spark. It's like saying that people professional athletes running around a field (philosophy) is pointless because they are not running in a race for gold (science) at that specific point in time. This is by all means not scientific, precisely because you can't address that specific subject matter scientifically: 1. God exists if he makes himself/herself visibly and measurably known and is observed and measured by a human being and the observations are confirmed by peers within the scientific community. 2. God does not exist if a human is present to see the end of the universe (or variant there-of) and he has not been yet observed (assuming he/she is tied to the existence of the universe) and the lack of observation is confirmed by peers within the scientific community. We simply don't know until either (1) or (2) is satisfied, therefore this is exactly the type of stuff philosophy is good at. It's not saying "can we prove it" it's saying "let's think about creative ways to prove it if we can get a little lax about the scientific method." Were "getting lax about the scientific method" means that "proof" can be derived from either common sense or logical arguments.
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    • zamalek 13y ago
      You mis-interpreted my statement :) > you can't address [the existence of God] scientifically Maybe one day science and philosophy will meld to the point where this might be possible in a peer reviewed in the Nature journal kind-of possible way, God cannot be addressed by the current scientific method. What's valuable about Paul Graham's line-of-thinking is that he can distinguish between science and religion - something that very few can do (and is likely going to make this HN post explode into a pointless evolution vs. creation argument - which is missing the point of the experiment entirely).
      • lutusp 13y ago
        > Maybe one day science and philosophy will meld to the point where this might be possible in a peer reviewed in the Nature journal kind-of possible way ... No, that's not possible, because of two essential properties of science that distinguish it from philosophy -- empirical evidence, and falsifability. The first (empirical evidence) means science is steered by evidence drawn from everyday reality in practical experiments or observations. The second (falsifiability) means it must be possible to test scientific ideas against reality, and those ideas that fail the test must be discarded. These properties of science mean that science and philosophy will never merge. > God cannot be addressed by the current scientific method. And the "current scientific method" is how science is defined. The only way to get around that definition is to abandon science.
  • lutusp 13y ago
    > Remember that some of the greatest scientists and mathematicians lived when all of it was just philosophy. Not really. Galileo and Newton turned philosophy into science by doing experiments, and scientists never looked back. Science differs from philosophy by being steered -- defined -- by empirical evidence, and by falsifiability, the idea that any idea must be testable against reality and must be discarded if the test fails. That's certainly not philosophy. > It's not saying "can we prove it" it's saying "let's think about creative ways to prove it if we can get a little lax about the scientific method." There's no middle ground such as you're suggesting here. There's no overlap between science and philosophy. They are distinct ways of processing ideas. One of them must be compared to reality at every turn.