Re: The logic of atheism

Ron Peterson wrote:

> Ben Goren wrote:
>> Ron Peterson wrote:
>>
>>> A better approach would be to define a different metric on the
>>> plane so that the coordinates of the lines describing a square
>>> would be equidistant from the center of the square.
>
>> But that wouldn't mean the construction of a square circle at
>> all. It'd just mean altering your ruler in such a way that it
>> reports the results you want, not what actually exists. The
>> points on the square wouldn't really be equidistant from the
>> center; you'd just be making up a convenient lie to describe
>> them that way.
>
> It's not a lie, a mathematical theory is a collection of
> definitions and axioms and has no need to correspond to a
> particular interpretation of reality.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're proposing constructing
a non-Euclidean space and then drawing your circular square in
that space.

Which is exactly why I've been careful to include ``Euclidean
space'' in my more precise descriptions of the challenge.

The point isn't whether or not one can come up with creative
linguistic interpretations to solve or appear to solve various
challenges. The point is that there are true impossibilities, even
if informal language is imprecise enough to permit various kinds
of interpretive wiggle room.

It's no different from saying that 1 + 1 = 10 (in binary) or that
1 AND one = 1 (Boolean logic). Yah, we know that. The joke was
old a long time ago. Might as well re-define ``1'' to mean
``frobnotz'' and be done with it. It does nothing to ``prove''
that you can start with a set that contains one thing, add another
thing to that set, and wind up with a set that contains anything
other than exactly two things in it. (Or that you can construct a
circular square in Euclidean space.) All you've done is re-stated
a tired old pun; all you're doing is playing wearisome linguistic
games.

And, yes, I'm well aware that my language is still imprecise and
that there's still some wiggle-room for yet more bad puns. Please
spare us, okay? If you want to address the fundamental concepts
that we all understand to lie beneath the common meanings of the
words, and perhaps to offer some insight into as-yet unknown
faults in those concepts, fantastic. If it's just sophomoric
squirming, I'm not interested.

Frankly, how do you expect to communicate with people if you
constantly reinvent the standard definitions?

Cheers,

b&

--
EAC Memographer
BAAWA Knight of Blasphemy
``All but God can prove this sentence true.''

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