Christianity and the Charge of Pagan, Hellenistic, and Gnostic Syncretism

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[D-fendr]

No, but I can buy them. I can also use 2,688 pebbles instead of eggs, and arrange them in groups of 12 each, then count the number of groups.

When you do so, get back to me and accurately claim you've proven it empirically.

But you are more than welcome to buy 244 dozen eggs and start counting. You don't have to take my word for it.

I'm fine with math proofs, you're the one that needs to count everything each time.

Where is the real world application to those polynomial equations.

The same place as your eggs and pebbles. Give it up, you failed algebra, didn't you?

The perfect celestial spheres concept went out with Galileo.

As, I suppose, did the concept of the perfect distance measurement. So you can't really go a mile - in the real world. Sophism, yes.

And again: Do you multiply 12 times 224 or 224 times 12? Does it matter? How do you know? Empirically.

Serious question. Try an answer not avoidance.

[D-fendr]

No one doubts pi.

You should. It's the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle. And the Pythorean Theorem is the ratio of sides in a right triangle.

There's no perfect right triangle, and no perfect circle.

Yet you doubt one ratio and not the other. Why?

[D-fendr]

Sorry, I should have included you in the reply to your post above.

[kosta50]

There's no perfect right triangle, and no perfect circle. Yet you doubt one ratio and not the other. Why?

I don't doubt either one of them. They don't exist or matter in reality and therefore do no represent the real world. Just theoretical, ideal world.

[kosta50]

When you do so, get back to me and accurately claim you've proven it empirically

I don't have to. Some mathematical methods (using whole numbers) have real-world counterparts and need not be done manually. Your egg examples is one of them. Others don't have a real-world counterpart and are conjectures. Maybe you failed algebra.

The same place as your eggs and pebbles

No, polynomials have real-world counterparts only to a very limited degree, usually the first two, maximum three expressions in extreme cases. I design optics and I know what I am talking about because I apply theoretical math to the real world of optical instruments.

There is nothing more stupid than someone who presents dimensional parameters to six decimal figures thinking they are somehow "significant" in the real world— because the math say they are there! Realty determines what is real. Not theoretical math. But is someone has the luxury to hibernate in a theoretical world then I suppose any number of iterations and decimal places is "significant."

[kosta50]

Yes. To whatever degree of accuracy you use

The relationship is true only if the angle is a perfect 90-degree angle. Under any other circumstance it is not true.

Call Scientific American, the Pythagorean Theorem has been revoked

Maybe you need to call them to tell them it's not a theorem. A theorem applies to something based on axiomatic assumptions. In this case, that the angle is at absolute 90 degrees. Under any other circumstance the theorem is not true.

[D-fendr]

Some mathematical methods (using whole numbers) have real-world counterparts and need not be done manually. Your egg examples is one of them. Others don't have a real-world counterpart and are conjectures.

No fractions in the real world? That can be falsified in half a second. Or are you stuck with Zeno?

No, polynomials have real-world counterparts only to a very limited degree,

Care to revisit your blanket dismissal of them then? The "limited degree" of polynomial equations is used a few billion times a second in the "real world."

There is nothing more stupid than someone who presents dimensional parameters to six decimal figures thinking they are somehow "significant" in the real world— because the math say they are there!

I'll take your word for the precision required in your field. But that doesn't change the math. The needs of precision vary, but the math doesn't.

You are confusing the limits of precision of measurement devices with mathematical truth statements. 2.5 units + 2.5 units still equals five units, even if your device is not cannot differentiate less that 5 units.

[D-fendr]

I don't doubt either one of them.

Oh good grief. You've been doubting the ratio of sides in a right triangle for days. You switch sides in a heartbeat. Ok, I'll play one more time:

You say the Pythagorean Theorem can't be proved - or you can't. Then why do you accept, not doubt, it as true?

They don't exist or matter in reality and therefore do no represent the real world.

Pi and right triangles. Don't exist or matter in reality. Unbelievable. Your "real world" is pre-Mayan.

[conservonator]

not unprovable. No one doubts pi.

of course it's unprovable, no one knows what the precise number is, we have an approximation, the fact that no one doubts Pi is a testament to the ultimate triumph of faith over fact.

Why?

I used to be a control freak

I think that is a sweeping generalization.

precisely, you think, but you can not know. The earth is in fact, not "round it's slightly oval, we think we understand celestial mechanics, but I'll wager that the suns relative motion to the earth is far from stationary. All of our knowledge is based on observation and is dependent to some extent on our senses. Every tool, every instrument we use is at some point simply a means of delivering some event or object to us in a more easily observed or manner. The size of the gap does not matter, what matters is that there is a gap.

Not really closed. Theory and faith are very much open-ended, by definition; but some mistakenly take them as close-ended.

Poor choice of words on my part, bridged would have been a better choice.

We live in a bubble called the civilized world, which has no bearing to the world around us.

Tell that to the AGW acolytes. What is the real world?

[kosta50]

Look, you seem to either not understand or refuse to acknowledge what theorem and axiom mean.

But, it's pointless to talk to someone who doesn't have to transfer the theoretical into practical, such as you seem to be.

[kosta50]

of course it's unprovable, no one knows what the precise number is

That's indeterminable, not unprovable. It other words, it's exact value cannot be settled. We all know Pi exists in geometry; we just can't determine it's exact number.

What is there to prove? No one knows the exact numerical value of Pi to prove it, so it is not something to prove, but to yet determine. The issue is not whether Pi is or isn't, but what is it's value. No one knows it, so it is unsettled or not determined.

Tell that to the AGW acolytes. What is the real world?

First I don't know what an AGW acolyte is. Second, the real world is simply that which doesn't require faith or blind belief.

Asking what is real a world is a joke or sophism. Maybe I could ask you what is God and see how far you get.

[conservonator]

That's indeterminable, not unprovable. It other words, it's exact value cannot be settled. We all know Pi exists in geometry; we just can't determine it's exact number.

Pi exists in theory only not in reality, you your self have stated that, parenthetically, but non the less. if a perfect circle does not exist in the real world, then neither does Pi. Mixing mathematics and philosophy is silly: water and oil, fact and truth.

First I don't know what an AGW acolyte is

AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming. you seemed to imply that civilized man, living in his bubble, what ever that is, could have little or no affect on the "real world" ; a ridiculous proposition.

Asking what is real a world is a joke or sophism

Not if it was asked in earnest. Since you don seem to think that we can affect the real world I wondered what you meant by "real".

Maybe I could ask you what is God and see how far you get.

Not very far I'm afraid. I have very little understanding of what or who god is outside of my own personal observations and the instruction I've received from the Church. I know He exists and is my reason for being like I know gravity exists and is my reason for hitting the ground when I fall. Like God I can feel the effects but I have little understanding of that which caused the effect.

[D-fendr]

But, it's pointless to talk to someone

You at least have the wisdom to stop digging now. I'll respect that and not push for the replies.

someone who doesn't have to transfer the theoretical into practical, such as you seem to be.

All my working day, that's what I do. Much of it involving the optics of photography and the other boolean algebra - the math of logic. And it works - in the real world.

[conservonator]

Sorry, I should have included you in the reply to your post above

Thanks, this is an interesting and thought provoking discussion, sorry to interrupt you and Kosta50.

[kosta50]

Pi exists in theory only not in reality

That's correct. Geometry is not reality. But geometry is real. And Pi exists in geometry.

AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming. you seemed to imply that civilized man, living in his bubble, what ever that is, could have little or no affect on the "real world" ; a ridiculous proposition

Thank you for clarifying the AGW. We do live in a bubble called civilization, a microcosm we created, with its own climate and structures. I don't recall saying that our bubble has little or no effect the real world because that would be inaccurate. We can very much produce an effect on our immediate real world. But not the real world as a whole.

I know He exists and is my reason for being like I know gravity exists and is my reason for hitting the ground when I fall.

How do you know [sic] that God exists?

[kosta50]

And it works - in the real world

It works [in some aspects] in the real world. It's not the real world. I will give you an example. Geometric optics predict that a perfect photographic lens will form a perfect pointless image of a pointless source, less than the dot "." on your screen. In reality that image (magnified 10-15 times) looks like this:

and even this is an idealized approximation...the image is never pointless. The central (Airy) disc has a measurably diameter, rather than being a dimensionless point; and the numerous rings, of which only two or three are visible (there is your exponential function!), is scattered light energy due to diffraction for which geometric optics cannot account.

[conservonator]

That's correct. Geometry is not reality

I agree to a point, it has the potential for reality based on probability. It is possible that there is a perfect circle, or a truly 90 degree angle.

But not the real world as a whole.

I'm not so sure, probably true in the long term but I think it might be possible to produce and effect on the entire world, as long as the world is defined and limited to this planet.

How do you know [sic] that God exists?

Observation and faith, the same reason I "know" gravity exists. While the observations of gravity tend to be objective, measurable and some times painful, the observations of the Divine, while more subjective, are as valid when it's understood that each require a bridge to bring us over the fact or knowledge gap.

Being able to name or measure something gives me an understanding of it's effect, not is cause. I have no idea why the force of gravity works in a physical sense, yet I know it exists. I can't measure God objectively so the gap is grander, more obvious than other gaps but a gap nonetheless. A gap doesn't preclude the existence of that thing. It dose, however, serve as a stumbling block. If I deny the reality of gravity and jump off a roof I will fall and possibly die. If I deny the reality of God and live as if all were chance, I will surly die as all me do but I might also miss the reality beyond this reality and die eternal.

I find God in the gaps. Without Him this whole reality is a ridiculous mess of unknowable gobbledygook lorded over by people fooling themselves into believing that chance is the only reality and they are masters of their fate and the fate of the world.

[D-fendr]

It works [in some aspects] in the real world. It's not the real world.

Our argument was never this. Not to me, anyway. The point was truth, facts, proof. You required "real world" proof. The fact that there is not perfectly round circle in the real world doesn't, IMHO, remove the truth of the ratio resulting in pi.

To the degree of precision humans are capable of, pi is proved in the real world. This is proof of its truth. Same for Pythagorus. This ratio can also be proved mathematically. The real world works in ways provable by math - that was the test of math accuracy.

How we "know" truth includes both, interchangeably. Why the world can be described consistently using math is a mystery. ["The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible".]

Boolean algebra is the same method for logic/reason. And what is proven true with it, is proven true in the real world. The true statements found by boolean algebra are true. Those proved false by it are false.

This type of knowing is not less than true because it goes beyond our ability to measure and our precision to construct.

I started this dialogue with "all models are false, some are useful." They are false because they are not the thing they model. They are useful to the extent they are true. Our true models extend our knowledge of the real world.

[D-fendr]

How do you know [sic] that God exists?

How do you know love exists? How do you know sorrow exists? How do we know anything that isn't material exists?

[kosta50]

Gravity can be tested. God can’t. Gravity is evident for believers and non believers alike. God isn’t. Apples and oranges.