While proving that 6 is not prime illustrates proving a negative in math, the caution arises in complex, real-world scenarios of non well defined domains. Demonstrating absences beyond math’s clarity and definiteness can be challenging if not impossible to say the least.
Demonstrating absencesanything beyond math’s clarity and definiteness can be challenging if not impossible to say the least.
ftfy
Anyway, just a tip for future comments on the internet: I’d suggest not being an asshole in your very first reply to someone you disagree with unless there’s a good reason to be, because it makes you look extremely silly if your shitty comment is actually just wrong. I wouldn’t have commented in this thread at all if you hadn’t been an immediate asshole to frightful_hobgoblin, but here we are.
You are just repeating a myth. A quick look from wikipedia:
Logicians and philosophers of logic reject the notion that it is intrinsically impossible to prove negative claims.[11][12][13][14][15][10][16][17] Philosophers Steven D. Hale and Stephen Law state that the phrase “you cannot prove a negative” is itself a negative claim that would not be true if it could be proven true.[10][18] Many negative claims can be rewritten into logically equivalent positive claims (for example, “No Jewish person was at the party” is logically equivalent to “Everyone at the party was a gentile”).[19] In formal logic and mathematics, the negation of a proposition can be proven using procedures such as modus tollens and reductio ad absurdum.[15][10] In empirical contexts (such as the evaluating the existence or nonexistence of unicorns), inductive reasoning is often used for establishing the plausibility of a claim based on observed evidence.[20][10][21] Though inductive reasoning may not provide absolute certainty about negative claims, this is only due to the nature of inductive reasoning; inductive reasoning provides proof from probability rather than certainty. Inductive reasoning also does not provide absolute certainty about positive claims.[19][10]
Yes you absolutely can. Here’s an extremely trivial example: 6 is not prime, which I can prove by simply saying 6 = 2*3. Bam, I’ve proved a negative.
While proving that 6 is not prime illustrates proving a negative in math, the caution arises in complex, real-world scenarios of non well defined domains. Demonstrating absences beyond math’s clarity and definiteness can be challenging if not impossible to say the least.
ftfy
Anyway, just a tip for future comments on the internet: I’d suggest not being an asshole in your very first reply to someone you disagree with unless there’s a good reason to be, because it makes you look extremely silly if your shitty comment is actually just wrong. I wouldn’t have commented in this thread at all if you hadn’t been an immediate asshole to frightful_hobgoblin, but here we are.
You are just repeating a myth. A quick look from wikipedia: