Re: Cardinality question

"Torkel Franzen" <torkel@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:vcbr7hlcz7c.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> David C. Ullrich <ullrich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> > Uh, do you have any reason to think that there is such a
> > "movement", which is picking up steam, other than the
> > crackpot posts here on sci.math?
>
> I haven't noticed any increase in anti-Cantor activities over the
> past fifteen years or so. In news we have our regular rants from David
> Petry, and contributions from a few assorted crackpots. In the fields
> of computer science and programming, people are interested in set
> theory only to the extent that they can make use of it, but
> of course no sensible person will rant and rave about how horrible
> something is just because it's not relevant to his personal concerns.
Well, this buildup against AC and the like is mostly in the realm
of crankery, of which sci.math is the international capital.
http://www3.telus.net/ldh/charter.html
But I've also seen (unless I'm getting paranoid, which is quite
possible) that some computer people have picked up
mannerisms such as
"depends on the Axiom of Choice"
"in first-order logic"
"constructive mathematics".
Teaching math to computers is proving to be difficult. You've
probably heard of efforts at DARPA and the EU to spell out
a format for mathematical results, so that theorems can be
stored and linked linked just like modules in a computer
program. Easier said than done, and my theory is that a
resentment of things like cardinals is one of the results of
frustration. But again, it might be paranoia on my part.
LH


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