Thank you for the nice comments. I'm not sure I was really "crushing" anyone - more like light-hearted banter!
Strangely, I don't usually feel smart - rather the reverse, most of the time. There's so much I don't know and understand it's pretty scary.
As for Gödel, my own view is that he was very much smarter than most people. I would count myself very much in the formalist tradition, but unlike some of the older generation I don't think Gödel did very much harm to the formalist case. Rather, I take Gödel's work as describing aspects of a certain (very large) class of formal systems, and take a "utilitarian" view of mathematics as applied to the real world. I suppose I think he was a very smart guy whose work has been imperfectly interpreted by others.
[–] antiracist3 2 points -2 points 0 points (+0|-2) ago
[–] antiracist14 2 points -2 points 0 points (+0|-2) ago
Holy shit, I crushed @Crensch so hard here. You're a mathematician. Maybe you can act as an objective third party to decide who won the "debate."
https://voat.co/v/Showerthoughts/comments/1137563/5657691
[–] Crensch 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Toby, if you want to lose more, all you have to do is tell me.
[–] TelescopiumHerscheli ago (edited ago)
I think if we're searching for truth we do better if we find areas where we agree. I have briefly skimmed your argument, and largely feel that neither of you is coming out of the discussion particularly well. My own view is that Gödel's excusion into a variation of the Ontological Proof is best understood through the lens of psychology, and should not be regarded as a serious piece of reasoning.
I feel that you and @Crensch would both benefit from setting your goals not as "winning", but as "understanding". There is nothing wrong with getting things wrong from time to time, or saying you don't understand something. The shame is when you don't learn. Instead of trying to crush each other, try to explain your positions to each other. If you teach each other, you will both get greater.