Re: Distinct linear orderings on Z
From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 03/22/05
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Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:32:58 GMT
Did you check the dictionary for a definition of parochial?
On 22 Mar 2005 16:26:25 GMT, rusin@vesuvius.math.niu.edu (Dave Rusin)
in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>In article <a5K%d.5669$nK.516286@news20.bellglobal.com>,
>Allan C Cybulskie <allan.c.cybulskie@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>>"Jesse F. Hughes" <jesse@phiwumbda.org> wrote
>
>>> Put differently: why do you suppose that the mathematicians should
>>> always assume that *you* mean something different (without knowing
>>> *what* you mean) when you use the term "number of elements"? What
>>> should they suppose you mean?
>>
>>They should suppose I mean the common definition, not the mathematical one,
>>unless the context is clearly mathematical. Is this too much to ask?
>
>If the definition is common, it should be easily accessible, right?
>I looked in a dictionary for "number" (though I really wanted "number of").
>I got a couple of very interesting definitions:
>
> (a) devoid of emotion
> (b) indifferent
>
>Oh, wait -- the dictionary directed me to "numb". Heh. "Numb and Number".
>
>I then turned to "number" itself. There was not "a common definition"
>there were MANY definitions. Which one did YOU mean? The one that
>means "singular or plural", maybe? [*] Personally I found
>most of the definitions to be reasonable summaries of how the term is
>used in common speech (that's what dictionaries are supposed to do)
>but not exactly models of scientific clarity. You know, the dictionary
>can define the aether, too.
>
>Among the definitions offered was
> a unit belonging to an abstract mathematical system and subject to
> specified laws of succession, addition, and multiplication;
> especially : NATURAL NUMBER
>
>This is from Miriam-Webster online -- is that "common" enough?
>In the interest of moving the discussion forward, could you agree that
>"number of elements" of a set X means that to the set X we will
>attach a "number" in the preceding sense?
>
>As a first step from that I might suggest we agree that the last three
>words cannot apply when discussing _infinite_ sets -- if you want to tell
>me that "natural numbers" can include "infinite" things then I would
>respond that the phrase "natural number" has no meaning at all, or at
>least that it means nothing at all different from what came in the
>other two lines of the definition. So perhaps you would agree that it's
>the two lines up to the semicolon that define what "number" means?
>
>dave
>
>[*] PS. I was going to write this in the style of Thurber but I can't
>bring myself to mess with the original, one of my favorites. This is the
>opening of a piece entitled, "What do you mean it WAS brillig?"
>
> I was sitting at my typewriter one afternoon several weeks ago,
> staring at a piece of blank white paper, when Della walked in.
> "They are here with the reeves," she said. It did not surprise me
> that they were. With a colored woman like Della in the house it
> would not surprise me if they showed up with the toves. In
> Della's afternoon it is always brillig; she could outgrabe a mome
> rath on any wabe in the world. Only Lewis Carroll would have
> understood Della completely. I try hard enough. "Let them wait a
> minute," I said. I got out the big Century Dictionary and put it
> on my lap and looked up "reeve." It is an interesting word, like
> all of Della's words; I found out that there are four kinds of
> reeves. "Are they here with strings of onions?" I asked. Della
> said they were not. "Are they here with enclosures or pens for
> cattle, poultry, or pigs; sheepfolds?" Della said no sir. "Are
> they here with administrative officers?" From a little nearer the
> door Della said no again. "Then they've got to be here," I said,
> "with some females of the common European sandpiper." These
> scenes of ours take as much out of Della as they do out of me,
> but she is not a woman to be put down by a crazy man with a
> dictionary. "They are here with the reeves for the windas," said
> Della with brave stubbornness. Then, of course, I understood what
> they were there with: they were there with the Christmas wreaths
> for the windows. "Oh <i>those</i> reeves!" I said. We were both
> greatly relieved; we both laughed. Della and I never quite reach
> the breaking point; we just come close to it.
>
>[Copied faithfully but without permission from "The Thurber Carnival",
>(c) through 1945 by James Thurber, published by Harper & Bros., pp. 43-46]
Regards - Lester
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