Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Absolute truth

I stand corrected: my statement that absolute truth cannot exist is false. There is nothing inconsistent with the theorem that it can exist, as far as I can tell.

An absolute truth would be a statement A such that for any statement B:

(B -> ¬A) -> ¬B

Then,
B -> ¬(B -> ¬A)

B -> ¬(¬B or ¬A)

B -> (B and A)

B -> B and B -> A

B -> A


Seems simple enough- no self-contradictions. So, an absolutely true statement, as far as I can tell, can exist given the normal logical axioms.

Of course, correct my logic if I'm wrong.

The problem then becomes, for those interested in proving that A is an absolute truth, showing that no possibly true statement implies A is false- not simply assuming it.

2 comments:

NotAppealing said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I was just talking to Sam and Mary about failing my Logic class last night, but if you had been around I probably could have passed.