"You can't prove a negative"

refutation of the oft-stated claim that negatives cannot be proven.

The claim refutes itself twice over:
i) it is a negative claim that negative claims can't be proven.
ii) it is a claim to the knowledge that knowledge is unknowable.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• knowledge
• Objectivism
• negatives
• prove
• proof
• lesbians

[nimisp4000]

You can not prove that something is not. That is not a negative statement my friend. Really break it down...

It's a double negative which makes it a positive statement. -1 x -1 = +1

Also related to what you explore in your second point, it a consistant inverse of "I can prove that something is" = "I can not prove that something is not."

Otherwise a very well thought out argument, your second point depends on your first point which is incorrect.

[dannidandannikins]

@futureboy00 Your position makes no sense. You are calling me stupid for not understanding the proposition 'you can't prove a negative'. If you are claiming that that is a proven proposition then you are claiming to have proven the negative that man can't prove negatives... thus refuting your own position. I am sorry to inform you that, in fact, you are the retard. Adieu.

[rulz492]

If I make a claim x != x + 1 for all x

This can be proven by contradiction: First assume the statement is true, i.e. x = x + 1

Rearrange: x - x = 1 ==> 0 = 1

And we arrive at a contradiction. Therefore the statement x = x + 1 is false and therefore x != x + 1

However, while I have proven a negative I have only done so by disproving a positive. Ergo, you cannot directly prove a negative. I can't think of any other way to prove a negative anyway, I might be incorrect.

[dannidandannikins]

@Toddgpoole Lol

BTW, since you have enjoyed this video and apparently view my approach as having some merit, please have a look at my other channel with a view to subscribing - it has my latest (and will have all my future) philosophical videos and the quality of the content and presentation is much much higher. It's linked on my channel page (StudentOfObjectivism)

[Toddgpoole]

@dannidandannikins That is a really good one. It does a good job of getting that punch to the balls kind of emotional response that I'm looking for. Thanks!

[dannidandannikins]

@Toddgpoole 'it is a very simple statement that provokes an immediate and powerful emotional response' I understand where you're coming from and I think Randi picks up a lot of people who make an honest mistake along those lines. By way of sloganeering I would lean to Hitchen's "that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". Which is absolutely correct and doesn't invite the listener into a bottomless well of epistemological nihilism.

[Toddgpoole]

@dannidandannikins I just mean that it is a very simple statement that provokes an immediate and powerful emotional response. I'm trying to come at this from the angle of a advertising agent. Sure, we can explain the product in the commercial, but a good catch phrase gets you more customers.

[dannidandannikins]

'Although you've proven ['you can't prove a negative'] to be wrong on a technical basis it is a very useful summarazition of skeptical thinking.'

if it is wrong then it is not useful - in this case the statement implies constant all-pervading agnosticism... skepticism about any and every fact of existence. The logical end-point of that way of thinking is total abnegation of one's rational faculty, a.k.a. 'nihilism'.

[dannidandannikins]

... his strength; if he can't then there is a limit to his creative powers.) i.e. whenever 'god' is defined the non-existence of that entity can be easily proven.

If they don't define it then it is arbitrary and can be dismissed without consideration.

[dannidandannikins]

@Toddgpoole 'The arbitrary is outside of rational consideration'.

When somebody makes a statement such as 'reindeer can fly' You ask them for the evidence... since there is none you dismiss it as arbitrary.

When someone claims that 'there is a god' you challenge them to define the entity they claim exists: if they define it then they invariably do so in a self-contradictory way (e.g. 'God is all powerful' - can he make a rock so heavy that he cannot move it? If he can then there is a limit to

[Toddgpoole]

What phrase would you suggest people use instead. Although you've proven it to be wrong on a technical basis it is a very useful summarazition of skeptical thinking. There are an infinite number of statements and claims that could never be disproven; psychic phenomena, hauntings, space tea pots, invisible pink unicorns, mermaids, leprachauns... etc. How do you sum that up quickly and effectively with a statement that has as much of a punch to it?