[Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Wed May 27 08:14:10 PDT 2015


On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: <<Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know
: which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space >>
: 
: The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics.
: Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable...

Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of
the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's
Postulates in the context of flat space.

But my point was that there are things other than proof.

: <<I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate.
: Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective.>>
: 
: Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition.

Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong,
but they are.

Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of
someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did.

: <<But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for
: justifying knowledge
: >>
: 
: But without a formal proof it is always debatable...

1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my
believing in something, not how I prove it to others.

2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people
don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY
proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining
postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually
more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is
justified by something other than proof.

And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling
why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general
concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of
formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman
means.

REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would
be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an
author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled
ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact,
his language is that of informal justification, not proof.

(I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from
Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/argument-by-design-ver-40>. For example,
R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The
Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting
certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead
speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more*
givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to
prove anything.)

REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to
create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or
flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default
position.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
micha at aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                    - Soren Kierkegaard



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