Re: why does professor david c ullrich have to put people down to feel good about himself?

lwalke3@xxxxxxxxx writes:

On Nov 27, 8:39 am, "Jesse F. Hughes" <je...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
galathaea <galath...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
it doesn't really help your case
when you say
  "hey this one's treated fairly
   (i mean they were still a crank and all
     don't get me wrong...)"
I don't regard Eray's later posts as crankish.  Can't you read?
It's true that earlier on, Eray's posts were considerably less
coherent and people were willing to say so.  Now, maybe you think that
treatment was bad, but that's not what I took issue with.  lwalker has
repeatedly claimed that anyone suggesting a new set theory is treated
as a crank.  

I'll have to look up this Eray and his posts someday. A
quick cursory glance on Google search reveals to me that
Eray's posts dealt with information theory, Goedel, and
Turing machines.

I could be wrong about his interests, but I recall some set theory.


The fact is that Eray's later theories are not dismissed
as crankery (but they also haven't generated much interest either).

Of course they haven't generated much interest. The
attitude of most standard mathematicians (and there's
_nothing_ wrong with having this attitude) is that
"if it ain't broke (or inconsistent), don't fix it."

I wouldn't necessarily put it that way, but as long as there is a
mathematical foundation that does what it should, the overwhelming
majority of mathematicians will be uninterested in alternative
foundations. (Perhaps most would be uninterested in foundations even
if there was not a good, working foundation.)

Even those interested in set theory will not necessarily be interested
in alternatives. Even those interested in alternative set theories
will not be interested in every alternative. And, of course, the
*real* cranks do not have an alternative set theory at all, but a
number of desiderata that you hope can be satisfied.

I repeat that there's nothing wrong with this attitude
at all. But the truth is that unless ZFC is proved to
be inconsistent someday, the mainstream mathematicians
will never consider using a set theory other than ZFC
in the same way that ZFC is used now.

Well, category theory has had some success as an alternative, but I'd
say you're probably right.

Naive set theory did prove to be "broke," and so
Zermelo and Frankel "fixed" it via ZFC.

The only point that I want to make is that just because
ZFC is the dominant set theory, it doesn't mean that
there can't be other set theories.

Of course there can.

The threads of Eray and other so-called/former "cranks"
will _never_ generate much interest, as long as ZFC
appears to be consistent.

Oh, if Eray could come up with a motivating reason to consider an
alternative, as Aczel did with ZFA, then perhaps some interest would
be generated. I doubt that Eray is up to the task (no slur on his
abilities --- very few people come up with a genuinely interesting set
theory).

Another way I think about it is that there could be
some parallel universe out there where the claims of
the so-called/former "cranks" are provable in the
dominant theory, and those who propose something like
ZFC would be labeled "cranks."

This is literally impossible, since cranks have mutually inconsistent
claims. But, sure, it's conceivable that there is a theory which
matches some large subset of a crank's claims. I personally find it
doubtful that WM's notions, say, could be represented in a coherent
theory, much less Tommy's. But we all need hobbies.

--
Jesse F. Hughes

"Right now I'm above the margin of error. I do exist."
-- Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, Sept. 2007
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
.

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