Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Rr: Reductio ad absurdum



Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to the absurd")[1] in formal logic is an argument to refute a proposition (or set of propositions), by showing that it leads to a logically absurd consequence.[2] In other words: the proposition is shown by proper inspection to be simply untenable within the rules of logic, because it necessarily leads to a self-contradictory consequence.

An unstable hypothesis creates an improbable seam. (Paraphrased from Lee Smolin Trouble with Physics)

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