Godel's Proof of God I

A batch of discussions from LinkedIn.


All belongs to the American Mathematical Society.


The name Godel appears in one of the discussions.

The page that appears in the link, http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=5799804668464873475&gid=158723&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_nd-pst_ttle-cn&fromEmail=&ut=1I5h5SzSJxYlY1, makes us see that several researchers, and members of the mainstream media have texts on the topic.

Giacinto Genco asks us to visit http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/248548/godels-ontological-proof-how-does-it-work#!, and the comments area brings someone's sigmatoids. Those imply that what is on the site may be a proof of the existence of God.

The mentioned proof also appears in http://thinkingaboutphilosophy.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/mathematical-proof-of-existence-of-god.html and http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/general-religious-debates/155882-mathematicians-claim-have-proof-god-exists.html.

The problem with this proof is evident. 


One can tell there is a fallacy by analysing its first line.

See:

Axiom 1 can only translate into:

1. Assume that some property P can be given to any property of the type phi.
2. Assume that, for each, and every, object you pick in the universe of objects available, it is  necessarily the case that if they have the property phi, then they have the property psi.
3. We therefore may infer that all objects with a property of the type psi have the property P. 

Changing that into words, the whole lot, tells us that this is not a logical proof.

Call phi having a unique model of steering wheel, like a model that is manufactured to match a specific model of car, which may be manufactured by at least two different companies. 


In the universe of companies that manufacture this model, only company X makes use of our particular model of steering wheel.

Call x car.

Call psi belonging to the specific model of car.

Call P belonging to the only company that manufactures that sort of car, with that sort of steering wheel (company X).

We then have:

1. It is necessarily the case that every car that has that model of steering wheel (therefore property phi) is a car of that specific model (therefore has the property psi).
2. It is a fact that every car with that model of steering wheel is a car that belongs to the only company that manufactures that sort of car (with that particular wheel. That is company X).
3. Therefore, every car that is of that specific model is manufactured by that only company that manufactures that sort of car (company X).

The fallacy is that the model may be manufactured by at least two companies. 



The conclusion does not follow from the premises.

We do not have a proof if any of the premises is wrong.

If our starting point is a wrong premise, we should reach a contradiction to get a proof of the opposite to our premise in the case of Classical Logic.

There is no point in analysing this any further because this proof is not equivalent to http://hroman.com/kurt-godels-mathematical-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/, or http://www.decodedscience.com/modal-logic-proved-godel-right-god-exists/38801, or http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g006w/eli5_kurt_godels_ontological_proof_for_the/, or http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/graham_oppy/godel.html.

On page 6 of http://arxiv.org/pdf/0904.3921v2.pdf, definition III.2 is Axiom 1 here.



Therefore the proof in this paper is also not a proof.

We may come back to this proposal later on, since the other sources bring a different proof under the name Godel’s Ontological Proof or Godel’s Proof of God.