(December 30, 2009 at 3:01 pm)Tiberius Wrote: We can be 100% certain of mathematical truth, since it's an entirely human invention. We made it, we control it. That's the difference here.
Gods (whilst also being inventions of man as I believe), are defined outside of the boundaries of humans. We don't have control over them as we do with mathematics. Thus there is always going to be the possibility that such beings exist, and that maybe the men "inventing" them were doing so because these gods acted through them.
Can you prove that it is an entirely human invention? Math is the beyond us mere mortals... it is the magick of GODS!
(/silly)Math appears to work within the bounds of logic. But because there are things that are not logical... i hardly think mathematics aren't relative to the universe we are attempting to calculate for.
That it has worked every single time before and will thus always work is an argument from circumstances (As most arguments about circumstance should be?)... and we couldn't be "100%" certain that math will always hold true to our universe unless we were omnipotent. And at the same time, it is possible that math could be right 100% of the time in every universe (if there is more than one, as seems likely?) and the nothingness beyond! We can rule out math being wrong... but should we find reason to doubt its unfailablity: we should be open to a new interpretation of it, or perhaps even a scrapping of it if someday it proves to be that bad :S
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
