Re: Peterson's Death Sentence

From: John Fields (jfields_at_austininstruments.com)
Date: 01/31/05 

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:22:51 -0600

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 02:25:28 GMT, Parse Tree
<account@domain.extension> wrote:

>learner@juno.com wrote:
>>>On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:25:30 GMT, Parse Tree
>>><account@domain.extension> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>Suppose I said that there was an equation such that 4+4=10. Now I can
>>>>claim that it's not bound by the laws of arithmetic, but that doesn't
>>>>change the fact that applying the laws of arithmetic results in that
>>>>equation being impossible.
>>
>> You failed to mention that your math only works if you are using base 10
>> arithmetic.
>
>It wasn't necessary. 

---
Yes, it was.  Your argument was unspecific enough to be ambiguous,
which led to its carrying an inherent contradiction.
---
  
>> If you change the base of the numbers, you change the rules of the
>> equation.
>
>No, it changes the symbols. The quantities referred to do not change.
---
Yes, the quantities _do_ change.
In base 10, "10" means this many periods: ..........
In base 8, "10" means this many: ........
Note that the symbols stayed the same, but the quantities changed.
>Anyway, you can't really specify that equation in another number base 
>without adding semantic info.
---
The fact that you _didn't_ specify the base when presenting a logical
argument led to the ambiguity which led to the contradiction which
made your statement not true all of the time, which made it false. 
-- 
John Fields

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