From: Bart Goddard on
Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in news:hu3n56$jvj$1
@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu:

> However, once you have decided to argue for
> or against some position, you would not use
> those past arguments as an "explanation"
> why someone is wrong, would you?

Depends on what level the "why" is. Why
the argument is wrong is one thing. Why
the person keeps trotting out wrong arguments
is another.

You used the word "determine". I think a good
argument could be made that his very poor
arguing skills are exactly what determines
the fact that his argument is lousy. At
least in the sense that his bad argument
was caused by his bad agrument muscles.

You can rebut that "correlation is not
causation" but in this case, I'm pretty
sure it IS causation.

B.

--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
From: Bart Goddard on
Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in news:hu3n56$jvj$1
@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu:

> I call drawing the conclusion the end of
> an argument. I do not know you, Bart Goddard,
> but I suspect that you would be insulted
> if I claimed that you claimed that Herc's
> mathematical arguments were nonsense /because/
> Herc is crazy, not because of some mathemmatical
> fault.
>

No, that's exactly what I'm claiming. An insane
argument exists, and the cause of its existence is
an insane arguer.

B.

--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
From: Jim Burns on
Aatu Koskensilta wrote:
> Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> writes:
>
>> Suppose that the correlation coefficient is
>> .999... . Is that a good counter-argument?
>> If it is, then I have a gift for you: the
>> probability that Goldbach's Conjecture is
>> true is > 0.999. Go and publish! You'll be
>> famous! (You're welcome.)
>
> What sort of probability is involved here?

What sort of probability do you recommend that
I involve?

Something to consider is probability-as-
degree-of-belief, leading to a Bayesian analysis
of the truth of Goldbach's conjecture, using the
vast pool of even numbers that are known to be
the sums of two primes as evidence. I expect
that there are further issues that need
to be resolved, but I did so want to leave
something for Bart Goddard to do, if he decided
to publish as I suggested.

It could also turn out that the further issues are
more difficult than a moment's reflection while typing
about something else might indicate, in which case,
my suggestion that Bart publish a probabilistic
non-proof proof might better be interpreted as pointing
out that a correlation coefficient between a poor
arguers and the arguments they produce is not really
a very good counter-argument.

But I would have thought that you would have seen
through me immediately, Aatu. I confess that
I introduced a probabilistic non-proof proof of
Goldbach's conjecture only as an example of a really,
really bad argument, and, so, what kind of probability
that I planned not to use was not an issue that
I spent much thought upon.

Perhaps you can imagine my surprise that someone
as insightful as you would apparently miss my point.

>> I decided to beat once again this argument-
>> turned-dead-horse because, after some reflection,
>> I have decided that this one point embodies most
>> of my personal philosophy of mathematics
>
> I'm baffled. What is it in your point that is
> specifically mathematical?

Uhmm? Is there something about the philosophy of
mathematics that requires it to be applied only to
mathematics? Then I am a failed philosopher of
mathematics, and I should run off to wherever
failed philosophers run off to, the Florida Keys,
perhaps.

I will have to think about why evaluating
an argument independent of its arguer seems so
obviously foundational to me. In the past,
wondering about why some obvious truth is so
obviously true has been very entertaining to me.

Perhaps I will be able to give you a better answer
at some later point in time.

Jim Burns


From: Jim Burns on
Bart Goddard wrote:
> Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in
> news:hu3n56$jvj$1(a)charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu:
>
>> I call drawing the conclusion the end of
>> an argument. I do not know you, Bart Goddard,
>> but I suspect that you would be insulted
>> if I claimed that you claimed that Herc's
>> mathematical arguments were nonsense /because/
>> Herc is crazy, not because of some mathemmatical
>> fault.
>
> No, that's exactly what I'm claiming. An insane
> argument exists, and the cause of its existence is
> an insane arguer.

I think our apparent disagreement is more of
a failure to communicate.

The background for my point is someone else
asserting that people who have been labeled
cranks have a harder time getting people to
agree with them -- /because/ they have been
labeled cranks. My position is that it is not
that these people are wrong because they are
cranks; it is that they are cranks because
they are wrong.

Perhaps you will surprise me, but I strongly
suspect that you would judge Herc's arguments
to be invalid even if I had asserted them,
or David Ullrich had, or Arturo Magidin had
than if Herc had asserted them.

It seems like common sense, too obvious to
need mentioning, to say that changing whose
mouth an argument comes out of does not change
the quality of the argument -- but that is,
really, what I am trying to say here.

I should also point out that this is not a
universal belief about arguments. Certainly,
it is not true in politics. That sorry excuse
for a debate about (United States) health
care reform saw senators furiously denouncing
Democrats for the same proposals that they
had applauded when they had come out of
Republican mouths.

Jim Burns


From: |-|ercules on
"Jim Burns" <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote
> Bart Goddard wrote:
>> Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in
>> news:hu3n56$jvj$1(a)charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu:
>>
>>> I call drawing the conclusion the end of
>>> an argument. I do not know you, Bart Goddard,
>>> but I suspect that you would be insulted
>>> if I claimed that you claimed that Herc's
>>> mathematical arguments were nonsense /because/
>>> Herc is crazy, not because of some mathemmatical
>>> fault.
>>
>> No, that's exactly what I'm claiming. An insane
>> argument exists, and the cause of its existence is
>> an insane arguer.
>
> I think our apparent disagreement is more of
> a failure to communicate.
>
> The background for my point is someone else
> asserting that people who have been labeled
> cranks have a harder time getting people to
> agree with them -- /because/ they have been
> labeled cranks. My position is that it is not
> that these people are wrong because they are
> cranks; it is that they are cranks because
> they are wrong.
>
> Perhaps you will surprise me, but I strongly
> suspect that you would judge Herc's arguments
> to be invalid even if I had asserted them,
> or David Ullrich had, or Arturo Magidin had
> than if Herc had asserted them.
>
> It seems like common sense, too obvious to
> need mentioning, to say that changing whose
> mouth an argument comes out of does not change
> the quality of the argument -- but that is,
> really, what I am trying to say here.
>
> I should also point out that this is not a
> universal belief about arguments. Certainly,
> it is not true in politics. That sorry excuse
> for a debate about (United States) health
> care reform saw senators furiously denouncing
> Democrats for the same proposals that they
> had applauded when they had come out of
> Republican mouths.
>
> Jim Burns

maybe you should stop being such an obvious hypocrite and talk about
the argument and stop attacking the person.

Here is the latest post in the argument so far...


You all SAY that the 'new subset' works in the infinite case and MAX only works on any finite case.

But you also show HOW you get a 'new subset' with finite examples.

It works so well with finite examples!!! That is why you are all fooled.

1 - {1,2}
2 - {3,4}
3 - {5,6}

the box containing the numbers of all the boxes that don't contain their own number is....

there is none... the numbers of all the boxes that don't contain their own number is..
{2,3}

IT'S NOT IN THE LIST

It seems to work, as demonstrated in the finite case, so you are all fooled that the logical
deduction for the infinite case is legitimate.

Your entire proof/belief/philosophy of higher sets than infinite size, relies on the fact that
there_is_no_box_containing_the_numbers_of_all_the_boxes_that_don't_contain_their_own_number!

That's your religion!

You can compute every possible digit sequence up to infinite length, you can compute every possible subset of N
up to infinite length, but that doesn't bother any of you, because it's in your text book.

Herc