New Anti-Cantor Attack
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From: Bart Goddard on 1 Jun 2010 17:58 Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in news:hu3n56$jvj$1 @charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu: > However, once you have decided to argue for > or against some position, you would not use > those past arguments as an "explanation" > why someone is wrong, would you? Depends on what level the "why" is. Why the argument is wrong is one thing. Why the person keeps trotting out wrong arguments is another. You used the word "determine". I think a good argument could be made that his very poor arguing skills are exactly what determines the fact that his argument is lousy. At least in the sense that his bad argument was caused by his bad agrument muscles. You can rebut that "correlation is not causation" but in this case, I'm pretty sure it IS causation. B. -- Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
From: Bart Goddard on 1 Jun 2010 18:01 Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in news:hu3n56$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 1 Jun 2010 18:20 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 1 Jun 2010 18:50 Bart Goddard wrote: > Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in > news:hu3n56$jvj$1(a)charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu: > >> I call drawing the conclusion the end of >> an argument. I do not know you, Bart Goddard, >> but I suspect that you would be insulted >> if I claimed that you claimed that Herc's >> mathematical arguments were nonsense /because/ >> Herc is crazy, not because of some mathemmatical >> fault. > > No, that's exactly what I'm claiming. An insane > argument exists, and the cause of its existence is > an insane arguer. I think our apparent disagreement is more of a failure to communicate. The background for my point is someone else asserting that people who have been labeled cranks have a harder time getting people to agree with them -- /because/ they have been labeled cranks. My position is that it is not that these people are wrong because they are cranks; it is that they are cranks because they are wrong. Perhaps you will surprise me, but I strongly suspect that you would judge Herc's arguments to be invalid even if I had asserted them, or David Ullrich had, or Arturo Magidin had than if Herc had asserted them. It seems like common sense, too obvious to need mentioning, to say that changing whose mouth an argument comes out of does not change the quality of the argument -- but that is, really, what I am trying to say here. I should also point out that this is not a universal belief about arguments. Certainly, it is not true in politics. That sorry excuse for a debate about (United States) health care reform saw senators furiously denouncing Democrats for the same proposals that they had applauded when they had come out of Republican mouths. Jim Burns
From: |-|ercules on 1 Jun 2010 20:28
"Jim Burns" <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote > Bart Goddard wrote: >> Jim Burns <burns.87(a)osu.edu> wrote in >> news:hu3n56$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 |