--- Valence <valence10@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Graham,
>
> > You wrote:
> > The possible exception that I am thinking of are mathematical
> proofs.
> Please tell me if I am wrong (I am no mathematician), but my
> > understanding is that a mathematical proof is only accepted if it is
> irrefutable. Pythagoras's theorem will always be true - no
> > matter what end of the universe you exist in.
>
>
> You have become confused between "knowledge/belief" (which as we
> discussed
> are merely species of opinion) and "definitions/conventions". But
> trouble
> your brain over this mathematical conundrum no longer Graham. Instead
> see:
> Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, chap.22, p.236, the last
> paragraph; it starts out.... "Poincare concluded the axioms of
> geometry were
> CONVENTIONS...."
>
> rick
>
But don't these conventions lead you to statements that are undoubtely
true or not true WITHIN the system? It seems to me that the axioms,
rules or 'conventions' are out there somewhere in sort of a Platonic
world of Ideas perhaps, and although you could say that the choice of
which axiom you take from this world is rather arbitrary and indeed
convention, but once you accept these axioms you have no choice but to
exept the consequences...
And those consequenses are not conventions, but hold true 'till after
the end of the universe, and before the universe began. That maybe noone
is there to pick up the axioms (or one could perhaps say: Ultimate
static Qualities) is another story.
To put this in a different light, suppose there where no 'ultimate'
static qualities (as I said, they're NOT ultimate because you're free to
choose them), I doubt then if DQ even can exist. No static qualities,
e.g. matter, nothing there to 'happen'. Without static qualities there
would be no change, because change is a shift of static qualities. And I
suppose DQ has alot to do with change. Or not?
Greetings, Patrick.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:45 BST