Rationality Quotes September 2012

Jayson_Virissimo

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Only on LessWrong would a statement with that much insight be downvoted because it could be taken to signal something vaguely positive about religion.

The quote, phrased in a less tortuous way, says that mathematics contains true statements that cannot be proven, and is unique in being able to demonstrate that it does. So far, so good, although the uniqueness part can be debated.

But the quote also states that mathematics therefore contains an element of faith, that is, that there exist statements that have to be assumed to be true. This is not the case.

Mathematics only compels you to believe that certain things follow from certain axioms. That is all. While these axioms sometimes imply that there exist s... (read more)

1Kindly14y

I was tempted to downvote it because it could be taken to be negative about math.