From philosophy to math: Gödel's proof of God's existence

[DetlefK]

Kurt Gödel was a famous mathematician and philosopher who later became friends with Albert Einstein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del

A german group of mathematicians has translated Kurt Gödel's proof of God's existence into a formal logical language and tested it, by computing it with suitable software. The result was that Gödel's deduction was correct. Some further results on the behavior of that logical system were also yielded.
(An article said, that the computation itself took less than a minute.)

Excerpt:
"Gödel defines God as a being who possesses all positive properties. 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 Gödel and by several philosophers who commented on his proof."

The axioms:
A1 Either a property or its negation is positive, but not both:
A2 A property necessarily implied by a positive property is positive:
A3 The property of being God-like is positive:
A4 Positive properties are necessarily positive:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.4526
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.4526v3.pdf

[intaglio]

1. Those axioms are all - dubious

Especially A3.

It also only describes "God-like" not "God". For example if we visited an alien planet where the inhabitants were at the neolithic stage we would be "God-like"; let's face it Clarke's axiom (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic) also applies.

[DetlefK]

2. It also depends whether you define a certain attribute as positive or not.

For example: Being merciful to a defeated enemy. Good or bad?

The Old Testament is full of God's wrath and his followers are encouraged to commit war-crimes against rivaling states/tribes.
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ has no mercy towards the pharisees and money-changers, yet demands that his followers practice mercy upon their attackers.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. I am positive that you are correct.

[dimbear]

4. Wackypedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof

Anselm in comparison has the virtue of simplicity, IMHO.

[LostOne4Ever]

5. Definition of Logic

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Ambrose Bierce[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore —

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

[DetlefK]

6. The Major Premise is obviously intentionally flawed for that example.

It should be: "Sixty men can do work sixty times as quickly as one man."

Injecting "a piece" implies that the work can be parallelized to any desired degree, which obviously doesn't work for tasks that depend on a temporal/causal sequence of smaller tasks.

[LostOne4Ever]

7. That is why I was posting that section

From the Devil's dictionary.

I think that Godel's proof has the same problem.

[FiveGoodMen]

8. "He believed firmly in an afterlife

stating: "Of course this supposes that there are many relationships which today's science and received wisdom haven't any inkling of. But I am convinced of this (the afterlife), independently of any theology." It is "possible today to perceive, by pure reasoning" that it "is entirely consistent with known facts." "If the world is rationally constructed and has meaning, then there must be such a thing (as an afterlife)."

(from the original link)

If...

1) The world is rationally constructed (is that REALLY the same as simply being consistent?), and

2) Has meaning (Who said it does? How did they defend that?)

Then...

There MUST be an afterlife (how does that follow? A rational process couldn't make temporary beings?)


Sorry, that's just pure rubbish.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Rubbish and or wishful thinking.

[Iggo]

10. And.

[dimbear]

11. Long ago the earliest Christians, who usually wrote in Greek, noted the similarity of the letter

tau and the cross on which Jesus was crucified. That's why all these proofs are called tautologies.