Re: Cantor's Theory: Mathematical creationism

From: David C. Ullrich (ullrich_at_math.okstate.edu)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 07:54:33 -0600

On 22 Nov 2004 12:09:28 -0800, david_lawrence_petry@yahoo.com (David
Petry) wrote:

>[...]Anyone who dares to
>suggest that those axioms and the conclusions derived from those axioms
>don't pass reality checks, is demonized as an idiot, imbecile, crackpot,
>heretic, or some other kind of subhuman, and excluded from the community.

Actually this is simply false. Curiously, there's a recent thread
right here on sci.math where you can see mathematicians giving
a crackpot a hard time because the crackpot thinks that these
things _are_ supposed to "pass a reality check", as opposed to
being simply abstract notions with no direct correlate in the
real world.

>Both theories do interfere with scientific, technological and social
>progress.

Damm, now that I've started I can't stop. What's an example of
how Cantor has impeded progress?

>A new world view, and a new paradigm for mathematics, have emerged
>from the computer revolution. This new world view strips away the
>mysticism from the mind, and from the foundations of mathematics.

I don't know what any of this means. But I have to point out that
a computer has no problem proving the theorem that the cardinality
of the reals is greater than the cardinality of the integers.

>[...]
>
>Footnote 3: Debunking pseudoscience is a noble endeavor.

I think we all agree with _this_ - hence the variety of
replies to your post.

************************

David C. Ullrich

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