Re: virus: C of V: Another Religion

Dave Pape (davepape@dial.pipex.com)
Thu, 30 Jan 1997 20:51:56 GMT


At 10:16 30/01/97 PST, you wrote:
>
>Alternatively, axioms are the things you assert because you believe
>them to be true but cannot prove them. For example, Euclidean
>geometry asserts the existence and properties of parallel lines;
>other geometries make different assertions, and one of them is a
>better description of the planet on which we live than Euclid's.
>
>"Existence exists" is very tempting, but the only one of Rand's axioms
>that I have seen demonstrated to my satisfaction is that I am aware of
>my own existence. (That goes back at least to Descartes's "cogito
>ergo sum.") As for "things are what they are," that may be valid, but
>it's not terribly useful: it doesn't give us any necessary connection
>between what is and what we perceive, or say anything about the ways
>in which things change.
>
>Vicki
>rosenzweig@acm.org

Vicki's got it. The philosopher's really happy because s/he's worked out
things that cannot be disproved. But what crap things! If all that logic can
irrefutably prove is that things are what they are, and that whatever exists
exists, then shouldn't we start laughing at formal logic a bit?

This is people thinking for three thousand years here, and what they've come
up with is that the things that exist, exist, and that they're the things.
Wahey!

I think that the triviality (in a way) of these axioms is an indictment of
logic as a venerated system of thought. I think that cognitive association
(which includes insight) play a massive role in getting us through our
lives, and that applies to professional scientists and mathematicians as
well as industrialists and artists.

Dave Pape
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