Re: Results of Poll by Email No. 27

On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 00:21, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse �  Tristan <kesuari@...>:
>
> > On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 22:59, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > > Which is actually a corollary of the Christophe Grandsire Law of
> > Existence: if
> > > you can imagine something, it exists, has existed or will exist
> > somewhere in
> > > the multiverse ;))) .
> >
>
> Oops! Forgot one word in that: "probably" ;))) . Let's say I like to be
> careful ;)) .
Lol, very good law you have their now :) How about the Tristan Law of
Existence: if you can imagine something, it either exists, has existed,
will exist, or does not exist, never has existed, and never will exist
in somewhere in the multiverse :)

> > How about the set of all sets that don't belong to themself?* Does that
> > exist
> > somewhere in the multiverse?
>
> Why not? It's impossible only when you discuss about it using our limited human-
> invented two-value logic. Why should the universe follow what is mainly a human
> convention?
Do you know of any other logics? How to they work?

>  If so, how?
> >
>
> How should I know? This law discusses only the existence of things, not the
> manner of their existence.
Good point :)

> And anyway, there's also another corollary from this law: seen that we human
> beings are essentially limited in our way of perceiving and conceiving the
> universe, it is probable that there exist things in the multiverse that we can
> neither explain nor even conceive.
See previous

> I always find that humans must have quite a lot of guts to dare pretend that,
> limited as they are, they can explain the whole universe. And that's a very
> scientific opinion :)) .
Do we pretend that we can? I thought we pretended that we could predict
the universe?

> LOL. According to a quick Google, the authors of the Principia Mathematica were
> Bertrand Russel and Alfred North Whitehead, and the proof that 1+1=2 appears
> only at the 362nd page of the book!
> (http://www.cut-the-knot.com/selfreference/russell.shtml)
Okay, people mislead me then :) But yes, it was Russel. (Unfortunately,
that scanning is too small to be read :(

> > Tristan (has come to the conclusion that mathematicians *must* have too
> > much
> > time on their hands to come up with things like that... And then to
> > prove that
> > 1+1=2...)
>
> Well, it was not that obvious ;))) (and it's not even always true ;))) ).
When does 1+1 != 2? And saying that 1+1=10 in binary is cheating and
doesn't count, because 10 base 2 = 2 base > 2 :)

(BTW: Thanks Teoh. Your explanation was helpful, even if it did make me
all the more concerned about mathematicians :) )

Tristan.

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