From: MoeBlee on
On Jun 8, 2:57 pm, Transfer Principle <lwal...(a)lausd.net> wrote:
> On Jun 8, 11:08 am, MoeBlee <jazzm...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

> > > standard theorists
>
> I invented, and so it's forbidden. I can talk
> about standard _theories_, since theories like ZFC,
> ZF, PA, FOL are standard. But as soon as I talk
> about "theorists" the phrase is forbidden.

Who forbade it?

I just asked you want you MEAN by it? Where did you find a rule that
it is "forbidden"?

> today, I see the post by
> Jeffries in which he discusses 6+4+8 = 26.

The way you formatted, I don't even know what part is Jeffries own
quote. I don't know the context of the thread, but even more, your
formatting doesn't reveal who says what in all those quotes.

> > I never criticized anyone for not "conforming" to ZFC. (Of course, IF
> > one presents something as if within ZFC that is not within ZFC then it
> > is correct to point out that, contrary to their representation, their
> > argument or supposed "reductio" or whatever, is not a ZFC argument or
> > not a reductio in ZFC). I've critized people for incorrectly and
> > ignorantly shooting their fat mouth off about ZFC. Have whatever
> > theory you like. But Herc does not present a theory. Rather, he
> > presents a bunch of confused and dogmatic rambling. He doesn't even
> > know what ZFC IS. Object to ZFC as much as you like. But if one's
> > objections are incorrectly premised or confused or ignorant as to what
> > ZFC is, then I'll point that out if I wish. That is not denying anyone
> > the prerogative still to hold philosophical objections to ZFC or to
> > aspire to a different theory let alone to actually presenting a
> > theory.
>
> This reminds me of another type of grouping that I
> may mention since another poster (Chandler???)
> mentioned it earlier. Instead of those who "adhere"
> to ZFC, there are those who _understand_ ZFC vs.
> those who don't.
>
> MoeBlee implies this above as well.

No I didn't. There are all kinds of degrees of understanding. As well
as, I haven't ruled OUT that there are people who adhere to ZFC, but
rather I just want to know what YOU mean by that.

> Herc objects to
> ZFC because he doesn't _understand_ ZFC or how the
> diagonal argument works.

No, I did NOT say that. I said that in his objections, he reveals he
is ignorant and confused about it. I didn't say that is the REASON he
objects to it.

Listen, Transfer Principle, please please please stop filling out for
me what I think when I haven't posted it.

> But I don't like this idea that the only people (on
> sci.math, at least) who attack ZFC are those who
> don't _understand_ it, and everyone who does
> understand ZFC defends Cantor.

And I never stated such an idea.

> What I'd love to see is a poster who _fully_
> understands ZFC, perhaps as much or even more than
> MoeBlee understands the theory -- yet still doesn't
> believe that ZFC is the best theory.

How about MoeBlee himself? You won't find a post of mine in which I
declare ZFC is the best theory.

And I don't know the views of all posters, but more generally, while I
can't speak for Feferman, Aczel, Priest, Lavine, Mayberry, and many
others, plus a whole school of constructivistts, I do think that
perhaps you would do well to acquaint yourself more with them in
regards the question you've just asked.

You keep posting as if you're not aware that even the "establishment"
press (Journal of Symbolic Logic, Springer-Verlag, etc.) is brimming
with all kinds of alternative theories and even radically alternative
logic.

Moreover, "best" theory is probably best evaluated relative to "best
for WHAT end?". Moreover, one might even lack and opinion or even a
CONCERN as to what is the "best" theory.

MoeBlee

From: herbzet on


Transfer Principle wrote:
> On Jun 7, 4:08 pm, Ostap Bender <ostap_bender_1...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jun 7, 3:57 pm, "|-|ercules" <radgray...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > Thanks for illustrating my point. Indeed, only adults with severe
> > > > mental handicaps would continue discussing this little proof and
> > > > trying to understand it using "box" analogies. What difference is it
> > > > if it's a box or a cup or a piece of paper? Who needs props when the
> > > > idea is so simple for anybody with IQ above 90?
> > > So you avoid this proposition because you "don't need" boxes?
> > No, what I am saying is that different people have different mental
> > abilities. While people with IQs above, say, 95 find Cantor's proof to
> > be easy and trivial, others, like yourself, need various props like
> > "boxes" to help themselves visualize the diagonalization idea.
>
> I don't believe that those who reject Cantor's Theorem
> must therefore have IQ's under 90 or 95.
>
> Once again I don't dispute that Cantor's Theorem has an
> easy, possibly even trivial, proof in ZFC. But that's
> just the thing -- _in_ZFC_. But this doesn't mean that
> anyone who opposes ZFC must therefore have a low IQ.
>
> Bender states that he first learned of Cantor's Theorem
> in a 7th grade math club. Of course, no one is going to
> start discussing NFU or theories other than ZFC to a
> group of 7th graders -- ZFC is automatically assumed,
> as it should be.
>
> But now in adulthood, one can be made aware of some of
> the theories other than ZFC. George Greene mentioned a
> set theory with a universal set, and Barb Knox also
> mentioned some ideas in her post. Ths, blind acceptance
> of ZFC is no longer necessary.

Bought a book recently -- "Classical and Non-Classical Logics"
by Eric Schechter (got it a huge discount). It is *very*
elementary in some parts, and it is mostly about propositional
logics -- it hardly touches quantified logic.

http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/logics/

The author argues that non-classical as well as classical
logic should be taught at the elementary level, a breadth-
first rather than depth-first approach.

I like the book very much -- I've been thinking of writing
a "review" of it, but I'm not that verbal.

It turns out that I'm interested in logics that are close
to relevance logic -- although the book also neglects
the S1 modal logic of strict implication, which is in
the neighborhood of relevance logic too.

In a similar spirit, it might be well to mention alternative
set theories to 7th grade math club members.

--
hz
From: Aatu Koskensilta on
Nam Nguyen <namducnguyen(a)shaw.ca> writes:

> Another example would be suppose we define AI formal system as one in
> which some of its theorems would be syntactically isomorphic to a
> formal system in which in turn there's a formula than can't be model
> theoretically truth definable. The clause "a formula than can't be
> model theoretically truth definable" would require a close inspection
> of our current knowledge about the foundation of reasoning via FOL.

Well, the notion of a formula being "syntactically isomorphic to a
formal system" also needs some elucidation.

--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.koskensilta(a)uta.fi)

"Wovon man nicht sprechan kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
From: Tim Little on
On 2010-06-08, Transfer Principle <lwalke3(a)lausd.net> wrote:
> But the term:
>
>> > standard theorists
>
> I invented, and so it's forbidden. I can talk about standard
> _theories_, since theories like ZFC, ZF, PA, FOL are standard. But
> as soon as I talk about "theorists" the phrase is forbidden.

MoeBlee is more charitable than I am about your phrasing. MoeBlee
asks you what you mean by the term "standard theorist", implicitly
giving you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps you meant something
that could be interpreted so as to make your statements true.

I say you are simply wrong, that standard theorists (or by any other
name) say no such things as you are imputing to them, and that your
saying they would is strong evidence that you have extremely poor
reading comprehension skills and/or next to no ability to form mental
models of other people. Quite probably both.


> Herc and Jeffries both write statements that are refuted by ZFC, yet
> are treated differently when they do so. Why?

The reason is that Herc and Jeffries have very different treatments of
other posts themselves, very different demonstrated levels of
mathematical competence in their postings, and very obviously
different types of claims in the context of their statements. The
ability to distinguish these may or may not be a skill you are able to
learn. I hope that one day you can.


> But I don't like this idea that the only people (on sci.math, at
> least) who attack ZFC are those who don't _understand_ it, and
> everyone who does understand ZFC defends Cantor.

Why should liking an idea affect whether or not it is actually true?
The empirical evidence is that the vast majority of those who have
attacked ZFC on sci.math actually *don't* understand it. Whether you
like that or not is of little relevance to anyone but you.


> What I'd love to see is a poster who _fully_ understands ZFC,
> perhaps as much or even more than MoeBlee understands the theory --
> yet still doesn't believe that ZFC is the best theory.

There are plenty of people in this newsgroup who understand ZFC, and
are perfectly willing to accept that it may not be the best theory.
Isn't it nice that your wish is already granted? However, I suspect
that you actually meant the stronger statement that they should
consider ZFC to be "unacceptable" for some reason. Bad luck there -
all of them here at least appear to consider ZFC to be an acceptable
theory.

I have heard that there are people who understand ZFC and consider it
to be unacceptable. However, they are not flooding newsgroups with a
multitude of diatribes against it. The vast majority of posts arguing
against ZFC or its theorems in sci.math are actually from incompetent
cranks.


- Tim
From: Marshall on
On Jun 8, 6:37 pm, Aatu Koskensilta <aatu.koskensi...(a)uta.fi> wrote:
> Marshall <marshall.spi...(a)gmail.com> writes:
> > That's right. Uninteresting. The TM is already too simple to be of
> > much interest to me. What is done with it could be done with any model
> > of computation; TMs are adequate for what we do with them but they are
> > horrifically awful by almost any metric I can think of.
>
> They are conceptual simple, a more-or-less straightforward idealised
> model of the way human computers go about computing stuff, as Turing
> clearly explains. This is important when discussing, say, the
> Church-Turing thesis. Other models of computation are better suited for
> other purposes.

Just as I said.


Marshall

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