Re: Another Inconvenient Truth

William Hughes wrote:
So you feel that you can make assertions about
what happens at noon, even though you only have
answers for "time stamps before noon".


Han de Bruijn wrote:
Answer me. What is the value of f(x) = 1/x at x = 0 ?

Why do you have trouble with the fact that well posed answers
to ill posed questions do not exist?

Well, what is the framework in which you're asking the
question? Within standard mathematics, it's an ill-posed
question that has no defined answer. Within the affinely
extended real number system, the answer is oo.

Likewise, the balls and vase problem is posed within a
framework wherein noon exists. So there is a solution
within the framework in which the question is posed.


And that any claim to have
an answer therefore is wrong. I've never said that the vase has
infinitely many balls at noon. I don't even know what infinity
actually is. (Potentially is another matter ..)

Well, I guess that's your problem then. Why bother
arguing over a question about infinity when you don't
even have any idea of what it is?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Questions about the marble problem.
    ... >>>definition of the number of balls in the urn at time s to infinity by ... namely the set of marbles in the vase at that time. ... >> of sets with the property that the cardinality of the set ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Infinity : An interesting variant
    ... This is a succinct demonstration of fighting fire with fire ie of infinity ... to vase B, but the inclusion of ball zero would exceed your neat figure of 1 ... (try recasting the model with extra balls). ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: infinity
    ... >> inserted under the original rules, ands that it is still removed at the ... >> strictly between 1 minute to noon and noon there are more balls in the ... >> But under this new scheme, the vase is obviously empty at noon. ... Until you explain what you mean by "10 times infinity", ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: An uncountable countable set
    ... number of balls in the vase at time t is 0; ... balls in the vase at noon must be infinity, ... The conclusion produces clear contradictions in terms of a time of emptying and the requirement at some point of a negative number of balls in the vase in order for it to empty at all, and it all derives from using the Zeno schedule to complete a sequence which has no end, hiding this fact in a time singularity at t=0. ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: set theory
    ... posts about distinguishing between framework and objects. ... But as it happens, infinity pops ... Lets assume finite sets are sets that have finitely ... odd nor even. ...
    (sci.logic)
Quantcast