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Author Topic:   Morality and Subjectivity
kongstad
Member (Idle past 2899 days)
Posts: 175
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Joined: 02-24-2004


Message 101 of 238 (304553)
04-16-2006 5:34 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by robinrohan
04-15-2006 3:54 PM


Axioms
Its a fundemental result that any set of mathematics is unprovable. To do any maths you must have unprovable axioms.
In maths there are unprovable statements.
The early mathematcians tried to deduce from first principles - read Eucllids elements for a beautiful example of starting with a few assumptions and ending up with a large body of work.
But the assumptions are not fixed. Euclid assumed that parallel lines will not corss. Remove that assumption and you get a new kind of geometry, non-euclidian geometry.
To include this assumption or axiomin your set is somewhat arbitrary, and must depend on what you want your maths to be able to do.
A well known set of axioms for all of math contains 7 axioms. These are chosen somewhat randomly. Joining 2 axioms might result in one statement that could replace these, so you would end up with 6 axioms, with one being a composite of 2. Or you might be able divide one axiom in two and still end up with the same maths.
And the axioms are chosen so that we end up with the math we know!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by robinrohan, posted 04-15-2006 3:54 PM robinrohan has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by nwr, posted 04-16-2006 10:35 AM kongstad has replied

kongstad
Member (Idle past 2899 days)
Posts: 175
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Joined: 02-24-2004


Message 130 of 238 (304768)
04-17-2006 1:06 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by nwr
04-16-2006 10:35 AM


Re: Axioms
nwr writes:
As a mathematician, why am I unaware of this "fundemental result?"
I was referring to Goedel. As English is a second language I was perhaps a little unclear. I simply meant that math as it is is unprovable. You cannot prove math by using only statements from within math - but we are going way off topic, so I'll cease now

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 Message 108 by nwr, posted 04-16-2006 10:35 AM nwr has not replied

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