Is it possible to 'prove' anything?

Question

e.g. - if I were sitting in my back garden at 11.02 yesterday, and a friend told me to prove it, what could I do or say to 'prove' it? If someone is in court accused of a crime, how can their mis-demeanour ever be 'proven' if no-one else but the accused was present at the time of the mis-deed? Eye-witnesses, CCTV etc - what's to say they've not been tampered with or are unreliable? I'm thinking it's impossible to 'prove' anything. In that case, what is 'proof', how is it obtained? Is there any evidence man landed on the moon? If there is, how could you authenticate it -'prove it'? Over to you...

Answer 1

Douglas,
To answer your question Philosophically ...no. Nothing can be ultimately proved to be real, factual or otherwise undeniable. Mathematics is not the answer, nor does it cause or affect anything. It is an attempt at understanding. Physicists, Mathematicians, Sub Atomic Physics etc., use math to either predict a possible outcome based on previous experiences, or attempt to explain an event, effect, reaction or the existence of something that has already occurred or is currently present.

Assuming you agree that Proof and Truth are synonymous, then the perception or idea of truth is relevant to your own personal experience and what you believe to be tangible or real. For example, if you kick a stone and it hurts, you can prove to yourself that the stone exists because of the pain you experience. But it is still your own personal experience according to your perception of pain. Is someone else's perception of pain the same as yours? Would someone else even realize they've kicked the stone? We've all experienced the discovery of a bruise or a scratch and thought to ourselves, "How did that happen?" or "Where did that come from?". We can see the effect but we cannot prove the existence of the cause of the effect. We can only make an assumption of the cause based on our previous perception of past events. But further still, if I look at something Green, does everyone see the same color I see, or is it uniquely my perception or idea of what Green is?

The self/conscience/soul is an intangible event. Scientifically, it cannot be proved that it exists. Never the less, we all have a sense of self, a sense of being. Therefore, we are greater than that which can be seen or touched. We have unlimited potential and possibilities if we can only let go of our perception of reality and its limitations. Unfortunately, to exist in a perceived state of tangibility, the thinking human has a false need for a collective agreement on what is real.

"But how can we determine what is real, (true or proved), if the self that is determining it to be real, is intangible?"
- Ramfta, paraphrased

Thus reality, truth, stones and the color Green need only be proven to ourselves according to our own perception of possibilities.

Answer 2

As an extension to what you ask, I have often thought that a jury can only convict someone if there is an absence of reasonable doubt. I have yet to see a case where, in my mind, there isn't reasonable doubt for many of the reasons that you have highlighted in your question. Even in cases where there seems to be infallible DNA evidence, there seems always to be a statement that there is only 1 in one billion chances that the evidence is wrong. That, to my mind, is reasonable doubt.

I suppose it depends on the extremely flexible nature of what is regarded as 'reasonable' and how it is defined.

What the answer is I don't know. I don't want to see criminals strolling around unpunished or free of penalty, but this reasonable doubt thing always seems to be an issue with me.

I have often taken photographs with my digital camera, and then manipulated them so that they are changed from the original. My intention here is not to defraud or deceive, it's simply to make my photos look more acceptable, or to obliterate things in the background that detract from the central subject. To the casual observer, that retouched photo is the image that I wished to capture, and yet is is not a true record of what was in the original photograph.

I understand that my efforts at retouching would soon be discovered by an expert, but what if photos were retouched in such a way that the modifications were undetectable, and then that photograph became evidence. Are we back to reasonable doubt again?

Your question poses some very interesting points that have concerned me for quite a while.

Answer 3

You have been charged, as accused of doing something against the law of the land, something that you did not do, something that you cannot prove that you did not do, but you are somehow charged. How do you feel like to be accused despite doing nothing wrong? Wouldn’t you like to shout, wouldn’t you want everyone to listen, and wouldn’t you like to say – why don’t you see people, why don’t you listen to me? I am innocent! We are sorry! Justice is blind. The sword of justice sees only what can evidently be seen. It believes only what can be proven. You must prove your innocence. The onus of proof is upon you! Or the charge against you must not be proven either. You have benefit of doubt!

Could there be a reason too common to us that we felt a need of sight and sound in our existence - to know and to tell what would otherwise be an unseen, unheard, unproven and unrealised existence?

All that is evident and can be proved belongs to knowledge. And knowledge is relative, and not absolute. Just the way we see all things with our eye but the eye itself, similarly the excellence in knowing makes knowledge itself invisible. All that remains visible then is the object of our observation. All that is there then all that we see mindlessly. The observer the observation both become what is being observed, the absolute, the wordless knowledge of the Truth.

When on the other hand knowledge is made relative, it gives prominence not only to what is being observed but also to how something is being observed, and most importantly by who something is being observed. We see thing that way they possibly should be seen. That makes all things observable evident from and for our objective point of view. Without relative knowledge we cannot prove or disprove anything.

For example, would you be able to decide, with an absolute knowledge whether what you see in front is a sunset or a sunrise if you do not stand at one fixed place relative to all other place on the Earth for a horizon to witness? To people living in one part of the globe sunrise is what to the people on the opposite side is but a sunset.

We cannot know for sure what has happened and what has not happened, what is right and what is wrong, unless we gather knowledge relative to our own existence. All our knowledge depends upon us without know what we are everything is lost into the unknown completely and utterly.

Now the question is where all things go that go unnoticed, things that escape the grasps of our knowledge, what happen to them? Are there some containers of knowledge and information of the world beyond known human capacity? Is there something that keeps track of all things that happen in existence – something that counts and records each and everything? Is there then goodness independent of human existence, and therefore is the supreme justice that governs all existence?

These questions are not alien to human mind. We have thought about these important questions all along, throughout the history of knowledge. We have asked these questions in oracles of ancient Greece, in temples of Asia and deserts of Egypt and vales of Sinai. We have searched the land, the seas and the sties for the answer to these questions. The best answers come only form of our beliefs. We can know what we know with all the certainty only when we prove that what we do not know is not void, only when we illuminate all that makes up entire existence with what we can know, what we should know, what we have power to know.

If we believe that there is an all knowing supreme omnipotent and omnipresent being in existence then we can rely upon the knowledge we have, however relative, limited and objective that may be. We can know this as a principle that we must do our best within where we know so that we may sail safely through the oceans of the unknown and unproven, of things that happened but we never know that they do. We must have faith above all to know that all things that happen do not happen in vain, they do not go unnoticed into oblivion; that there is some being who keeps the knowledge of all things.

Answer 4

proof can be in many forms even the lie detector and dna but yes how can we say man has been to the moon apart from the fact that there have been 2 people who have paid a fortune to go the moon as tourists, its difficult to define the truth really.
i do believe in some of the theories regarding the moon trip being set in a studio and then youve got the diana conspiericies and then 9/11. we were meant to be told the truth about jack the ripper a while ago but wasnt, the marilyn monroe murder that wasnt proved but we know its more than likely to have the kennedys involved. the list goes on

Answer 5

Try proving you are here... a solid thing... put a flashlight to the palm of your hand does not the light shine through? There is only one reality and that is pure Love. All Else is but an illusion. Even the pain you feel is an illusion. In this world of rocks, trees, water, sun, animals etc there are many realities though. Ex: some one telling another going to dentist is not hard is one reality. The one sitting in the dentist chair has another reality. If you could 110% remove fear from your being you would truly know Love and there would ever never be anything to prove... ever.

Answer 6

Man on the moon can easily be proved, by re tasking a satalite to take high defenition pictures of the moons surface, in the location of the lunar landing, where, a lunar buggy, flag, and other remnats, left from the missions would clearly be seen. The fact it hasnt happend, proves it didnt happen.
Proof as such, dosnt exist, or we wouldnt have a jury of 12 men good and true, to interpret it, and make the final descision.

Answer 7

you could have him come over to the garden and look... or show him a picture... i know what ur saying.. the pic could be tampered... but most people accept 99% proved as proved. i suppose your right that nothing can be proven 100%... but why does that matter at all? humans work using assumption. its one of the main ways we are different from computers. computers cant be wrong because they assume nothing... we can because we do constantly, but this speeds things up.. otherwise we would always ask everyone to define every word they say.. so its the same thing... after a given level of proof it is assumed to be true... and its not very usefull to require more than that.

Answer 8

Yes, I could prove I'm sitting here at my desk replying to this and how would you know? You, personally wouldn't would you?, but my isp and yahoo could- it's called an isp trace. They also use cookies to store data and information. How can we prove this is a valid question? It is because a human had to have had the time to think about the question before typing it. As for law purposes, grab a book and do some case studies- there's a reason why we have prosecuters and defenders.

Answer 9

I won't go into the court stuff if you don't mind ;)
But the whole 'proof' thing does my head in some times.
You get get fundamentalist religious nutters saying that the lack of a continuous fossil record 'PROVES' their claim that the world was created a few thousand years ago.
Yet when new evidence comes to light they brush it to one side.
Then there have been a couple of death penalty cases. one in the US & one in Pakistan (both british subjects), where the courts have basicaly said, they are innocent, but some local power has overruled.
Proof I think is an abstract: especially to people in power :(

Answer 10

No, I do not think anythig can be "proven" for sure. Pretty much something is considered "proven" if no one can come up with proof against it. As soon as someone can disprove it though - its gone.

I think it the court system there is reasonable doubt. Yes, someone could have superimposed you on video at a crime scene then put your DNA there etc. but more than likely, that means you are the guilty one.

We just could not function if we qustion the validity of everything (and it would have to be EVERYTHING). We have to just assume things "proven" are actually true.