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fishfry

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I'm afraid I don't follow this at all. I know of no such instance. The axiom of extensionality depends on the law of identity, which is a principle of...
September 03, 2019 at 02:20
Well there's an answer to that. We distinguish between time, a particular aspect of the universe, and time as modeled in physics. It's traditional to ...
September 02, 2019 at 07:49
I am not a philosopher. I am not competent to defend anything I wrote in this thread. Consider it just an idle drive-by post, not to be taken as autho...
September 02, 2019 at 07:15
That's the old mind-body problem. If there's a nonphysical realm of existence where my mind dwells, what exactly is it? And what else lives there? The...
September 02, 2019 at 04:02
I'm afraid my knowledge of physics is limited to reading Scientific American articles back in the day, and watching Youtube videos lately. My understa...
September 02, 2019 at 03:47
I suppose so. But even in PA there are infinitely many numbers. There's just no completed set of them. So they are not formally a proper class, but we...
September 01, 2019 at 21:26
I certainly agree with you that reality is one thing, and our historically contingent scientific models are another. I don't believe that "the univers...
September 01, 2019 at 21:24
I agree that mathematical infinity is "true" in the abstract realm of math. But that's like saying that the way the knight moves is "true" in chess. B...
September 01, 2019 at 21:22
I don't know enough physics to serve as an explainer. I couldn't even find a decent explanation online. For ex "The logical consequence of taking thes...
September 01, 2019 at 21:20
The point isn't that we can talk about when something happens as well as where. The point is that space and time aren't independent. They're not like ...
September 01, 2019 at 01:30
There's a straightforward and unambiguous mathematical distinction. The inductive axiom of the Peano axioms say that whenever n is a number, n + 1 is ...
August 31, 2019 at 23:48
You're smart in one area and a delusional bullshit artist when you talk about things you clearly know nothing about. You got busted. Give it a rest. Y...
August 26, 2019 at 06:03
LOL. One (you, me, anyone) would need a Ph.D. in set theory and several years of specialized postdoc work, and probably more than that, just to read w...
August 26, 2019 at 04:58
None of that is remotely true. You started talking about set theory here ... https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/317954. Note that YOU w...
August 26, 2019 at 03:34
Ok so in formalism, we have string manipulation rules that have no inherent meaning. But someone can use them by interpreting them; that is, by assign...
August 26, 2019 at 03:27
This doesn't appear to be what the OP is talking about. Can you explain?
August 26, 2019 at 03:09
Can you please give a concrete example?
August 25, 2019 at 21:42
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(philosophy_of_mathematics) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/formalism-mathematics/ Hmmm. What does "mathema...
August 25, 2019 at 20:57
The even natural numbers and the odd natural numbers are both countable but they're not equal as sets. They're cardinally equivalent, but that's not t...
August 25, 2019 at 19:56
You're repeating them out of context without understanding. I'm always up for a chat about set theory but this ain't it. Without looking it up, what i...
August 25, 2019 at 19:27
Why not? May I ask if these are technical terms with which you're familar? You mis-stated CH in such a way as to give me the impression you haven't st...
August 24, 2019 at 03:19
This is true by the definition of the Aleph numbers. It's not a statement of the continuum hypothesis. I hope we can clarify this if we're going to ta...
August 24, 2019 at 02:03
This is an interesting comment. I could say, suppose the light switch is in the next room and an evil demon electrician is flipping it? There's motion...
August 23, 2019 at 00:44
The Alephs aren't fields. Finite fields have absolutely nothing at all to do with this. They're apples and rutabagas. One can Google around. A lot of ...
August 22, 2019 at 23:23
Cantor thought that the limit of that process, essentially the union of all the infinite cardinals, was God. God is the absolute infinity. Cantor's th...
August 20, 2019 at 23:29
I'm not sure this is sound. If you turn a light in your living room on and off, you have "day and night," but that's not proof of relative motion betw...
August 18, 2019 at 16:58
Malthus said that 200 years ago and Erlich said it in the 1960's. Both turned out to be wrong. Why should I believe you today? Of course from a numeri...
August 17, 2019 at 05:46
Sinking boats and earthquakes support the idea of ecological collapse? What are you talking about? People do get hit by city buses, I'll grant you tha...
August 17, 2019 at 05:41
We should have stayed in caves? I don't follow your point. I've got 200,000 years of human progress on the side of my argument. You've got 200 years o...
August 17, 2019 at 05:39
Slow day around here? You did NOT talk about fusion. You mentioned cold fusion, a technology that's never been conclusively demonstrated to work at al...
August 16, 2019 at 21:53
Other sources. I've been reading up on fusion power lately. You're acting like those people in 1995 who said the Internet was a fad. Keeping up with t...
August 16, 2019 at 21:47
That's silly. Fusion is a technology currently getting a lot of government and private investment. Experimental fusion reactors are already generating...
August 16, 2019 at 21:32
Regular old fusion is on the 20 year horizon. It runs on seawater. No risk of meltdown or runaway chain reaction. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ten-ser...
August 16, 2019 at 21:25
All of Erlich's predictions were wrong. He lost all his resource price bets. I'd say the same will happen in the future. Human ingenuity will defeat d...
August 16, 2019 at 05:20
I don't mean for this to sound glib or cute. I am trying to understand your use of the term meaningful. Is discussing the upcoming American pro footba...
August 10, 2019 at 06:43
Your perspective is interesting. I enjoy his books a lot and also his irreverent and "I'm smarter than everyone else" style. On learning that he has s...
August 03, 2019 at 06:31
The revenge of Russell. Type theory triumphant. I'm all typed out, no pun intended, nothing else to say at the moment.
August 02, 2019 at 02:20
I should quit now! I just wanted to say that in the cold light of day I no longer believe what I wrote last night. If you start with classical math an...
July 24, 2019 at 22:41
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathematics-constructive/ They echoed many of the things you've been saying, such as that there are several (four i...
July 24, 2019 at 03:07
I don't know much about the guy. I read today that he once said of Hillary Clinton: She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare...
July 23, 2019 at 23:35
As I think of it, perhaps a new axiom is an oracle. I understand that point of view. So I'm willing to be agreeable on this point, but still no less c...
July 23, 2019 at 21:52
Hardy was a number theorist. At the time he wrote those words, number theory was regarded as beautiful but useless. Today it's the mathematical founda...
July 23, 2019 at 04:02
A line is only one dimensional. A plane is two dimensional. Points are zero-dimensional. How a bunch of zero dimensional points make a line is a bit o...
July 21, 2019 at 15:13
You mean the decimal representation of a real number? Yes, they're infinitely long. For example 1/3 = .333... and sqrt(2) = 1.4142... and so forth. Ev...
July 21, 2019 at 15:08
No intrusion at all, I love to talk about the standard real numbers! I'm not sure which part of your question I didn't clarify, I'd be glad to try aga...
July 21, 2019 at 06:30
In the standard set-theoretic account of the real numbers, the real line is made of points. That is, the line is the union of all the sets that each c...
July 21, 2019 at 04:53
Yes yes this is the part I understand. Coq is a tool for helping to avoid errors in published math. That was Voevodsky's idea. It's the mystical mathe...
July 21, 2019 at 04:16
Right. The real numbers are a continuum. The rational numbers aren't because they're not Cauchy complete. The computable reals are not because they ar...
July 21, 2019 at 04:08
Ok. I will stipulate to being thoroughly confused on this point. But that's ok. I'll stipulate you are correct on this point. I just don't understand ...
July 21, 2019 at 04:05
Ok that said. This is different from what I understood from the Italian paper, which is that a real number is characterized by (or identified with) a ...
July 21, 2019 at 03:52