Re: chaos <=> paradox. Prove me wrong. A challenge.

From: D. Dub (ddub_at_theendoftheuniverse.com)
Date: 10/07/04 

Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 01:31:44 GMT

or 1+1 could equal extra guacamole on a burrito.

Numbers are abstract and don't inherently mean anything. If you think they
do please mail me a 1. (Not the symbol on paper)

"Garry" <gmalloy@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:%zV8d.3$5g1.730@read2.cgocable.net...
> The day 1+1 does not equal 2 is the day you will win your argument.
> Personally, I'm on the side of 1+1=2.
>
> Garry
>
> "Lefty" <Ye@h.Right> wrote in message
> news:YZJ8d.419670$8_6.60631@attbi_s04...
>>I said:
>>> > Most mathematicians hate paradoxes because they are confounding, and
>> they
>>> > hate to be confounded by something.
>>
>> Then you said "Exhibit A":
>>> Please stop saying this. I have not met a mathematician who feels
>>> anything close to dislike, much less hate, for paradoxes. If a
>>> mathematician encounters a contradiction, it indicates that work needs
>>> to be done to remove it. Once that work is done, the contradiction is
>>> reduced to a paradox because it now only *appears* to contain a
>>> contradiction.
>>
>> And you also said "Exhibit B":
>>> An apparent paradox in the physical universe merely indicates a flaw in
>>> our understanding of it.
>>
>>
>> Now, I'm not saying that mathematicians hate anything. But if you look at
>> both A and B above, you will see that you personally cannot tolerate the
>> existence of a paradox. You seem to think that contradiction implies
>> inconsistency, and I am saying that there is no theorem which supports
>> this.
>> It is one of the fundamental assumptions which you make, as a
>> mathematician,
>> that everything must make sense somehow. Why on Earth would you believe
>> this
>> ? Things might make sense locally within the model of math overall, but
>> globally it is assumed that math is incomplete because of the existence
>> of
>> paradoxes or contradictions or whatever you want to call them. I disagree
>> with that position. I think that math might be complete even with the
>> existence of contradictions simply because we are prisoners of a universe
>> which is going to have it's way with us and our minds. Godel is right,
>> but
>> only if the universe is well behaved in terms of the robustness of logic
>> in
>> non-euclidean space. Gee - is there such a thing as a topological
>> logician ?
>> I dont think so. Go ask an algebraist.
>>
>> Did someone hand you a gurantee that logic is static throughout the
>> universe
>> ? That the laws of physics and perception of logic are absolute,
>> unchanging
>> and uniiversally inviolable ? Thats a crock of crap, and I had'nt
>> intended
>> this post to show up in a math group, but since it did, and someone
>> spotted
>> it, then maybe you would show me what proof you have that logic reigns
>> supreme, and that there are no twists in it ? You cant.
>>
>>
>>
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