jgill

Oh no! And we are so close to half a millennium! Don't stop now. This may be a record for total nonsense. :scream:

I never heard of this in my many years as a prof. But it may have happened at more prestigious institutions. On the other hand there have been numerou...

Think of going back in time one year, then from there back 1/2 a year, then from there back 1/3 a year, etc. At each stage there is "causation" before...

If I were to say, yes,there may be such a galaxy, would I be indulging in metaphysics? :chin:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Proving-Non-Existence :cool:

The practice of Zen might help. It's possible to reach a point where the mind still races, but one is able to stand apart and observe.

The old monkeys and Shakespeare thing. If the probability of something happening is 10^-20 does that mean it could happen? But who or what assigns eve...

empirical: "based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic." A mathematical proof of a theorem ...

How many?

"Multiplicative identity" is more appropriate. But whatever. It appears this thread will go to infinity without ever leaving the starting point. Parad...

The impact of Sputnik. I graduated high school in 1954 and college in 1958, but I don't remember that kind of instruction. In the 1960s the civil righ...

Are you saying human consciousness is not dependent on the brain? I don't think one can categorize or pin down a succinct definition of metaphysics. I...

And I consider it the best of metaphysics, existing solely in the mind but useful in developing the mathematics describing physical phenomena. Carson ...

Once apprehended, it should be incarcerated and prosecuted to the fullest extent. Understanding abets acting and is equally guilty. Perhaps. But there...

Learn Mathjax in the tutorial on this forum. Or use MathType or some similar program. Few if any will try to unravel what you have posted.

Still attacking those windmills with your insightful lance, eh? I have to admit, you've got gumption! :nerd:

Feynman, not me. But he had a point about the set theory. I taught college algebra in the era of the New Math, and the first chapter in the book we us...

How about abstract art, people? :chin:

Here's a good description of abstraction in mathematics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_(mathematics) It's an ongoing process, moving furth...

:rofl:

I've been a mathematician for almost sixty years and have known good mathematicians with poor language skills and others with high language skills, co...

Oh boy, made it to 400 posts!! That's progress! :nerd:

Being an expert is something of a challenge in this forum. :roll:

I appreciate your knowledgeable commentaries. Thanks. :cool:

I know, I know. You'd be driven from your castle in the dead of night by an angry mob of mathematicians waving their torches and holding their frothin...

That's just the point. Perhaps we don't really understand "our world" that well. Odd looking axioms should not be cavalierly discarded simply because ...

However, modern, abstract mathematics may be more like the game of chess and less likely to describe our world. For a number of years it's been fashio...

You are certainly reaching far back in history - Ship of Theseus - for your argument. All the philosophical banter about self has little if any impact...

Sorry to intrude. I am not a philosopher, but I am not sure what you mean, here. For example, in the philosophy of morals or ethics, what is the "corr...

It must be brutal that few in the mathematical community seem concerned. But I do agree that the axiom of choice is an unhealthy pathology. :cool:

I'm a retired mathematician. There seems to be a considerable overlap with analytic philosophy in the foundations of mathematics and set theory, very ...

Thought my post would inspire comments. :cool: I repeated verbatim what a friend who has practiced Zen for over twenty years said in another forum. I ...

Self-referential definition? Try, ". . . and/or affects physical objects"

"What I'm particularly concerned about is the ratio between consecutive elements in the set N" n/(n+1) = 1/(1+1/n) -> 1/(1+0) = 1 Rest easy, mate. Tim...

This is more a subject for Zen meditation. There one learns, or experiences one's "I" as a fabrication. Instead of "I am aware" there is only awarenes...

I wonder how efforts to attract a professional philosopher to this forum are progressing? :roll:

I think it is unnecessary to even use the word "philosophy" in this regard. It appears you are trying to find a niche, a recognition for something tha...

True enough, if what you mean by "philosophy" is simply critical thinking exhibited by those very familiar with the science and with administrative sk...

:up: Amen to that! I seriously doubt that. Did Richard Feynman take a philosophy course to learn critical thinking skills?

Please, please, don't start calling this trash "theorems". And stay away from LaTeX, it's not like playing with a shovel and pail in a sandpile. What ...

Five is a quantity, six is a quantity, and Heavens to Betsy, I do believe there are more! :lol:

Not "all" higher math is all about. Lots of topology topics, for example, don't revolve about infinities. True, but frequently it concerns spaces of f...

:rofl:

Just a comment about posting math material, symbols, equations, etc. I doubt if anyone here uses it, but MathType is very easy to use and is WYSIWYG r...

Much ado about very little. :roll:

It's a fun thought experiment, like the Grandfather paradox. My solution? Consider alternate universes created each instant - different paths into the...

Been there, done that. So I have a little sympathy for your concerns. I will admit that the second field for me (mathematics) became tiresome at times...

I'm not sure that one can conclude that time is composed of individual Planck lengths strung together. My understanding is that measurements cannot be...

In what way is it substantive? Are there physical processes that go one way if time is discrete and another way if time is continuous? :chin:

From a student of the mathematician Terence Tao (UCLA): "245C (1st year grad real analysis) was a course on special topics and was more loosely struct...