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Gödel’s Proof of Existence of God Revisited

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Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Constraints

Part of the book series: Studies in Systems, Decision and Control ((SSDC,volume 217))

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Abstract

In his unpublished paper, the famous logician Kurt Gödel provided arguments in favor of the existence of God. These arguments are presented in a very formal way, which makes them difficult to understand to many interested readers. In this paper, we describe a simplifying modification of Gödel’s proof which will hopefully make it easier to understand. We also describe, in clear terms, why Gödel’s arguments are just that—arguments—and not a convincing proof.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grants 1623190 (A Model of Change for Preparing a New Generation for Professional Practice in Computer Science), and HRD-1834620 and HRD-2034030 (CAHSI Includes). It was also supported by the program of the development of the Scientific-Educational Mathematical Center of Volga Federal District No. 075-02-2020-1478. The authors are greatly thankful to Anatol Slissenko and to all the participants of the Fifth St. Petersburg Days of Logic and Computability Conference (St. Petersburg, Russia, May 12–15, 2021) for valuable discussions.

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Correspondence to Vladik Kreinovich .

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Kosheleva, O., Kreinovich, V. (2023). Gödel’s Proof of Existence of God Revisited. In: Ceberio, M., Kreinovich, V. (eds) Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Constraints. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 217. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16415-6_33

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