While I don’t agree with the way they phrased their explanation, it’s akin to saying “I’m not sure if 2 + 2 = 4 is true, but I am sure it can’t equal anything else.” Then falling back to “but there could be oddities in the foundation of mathematics that I’m not aware of” when pressed on the inconsistency.
If you claim that your understanding of logic isn’t exhaustive, I don’t see how you can also claim that X is logically impossible. (“I’m not a car expert but there is no possible way the problem is with the engine”)
Thanks for that analogy, that gives me a new way to think about it.
I believe I can agree with the 2 + 2 = 4 theorem because I already agree with agreement in the summation of the components represented.
To illustrate:
If I put up 2 figures, then another 2 fingers, I can reliable get consensus from a survey of people and my own intuition/memory that it represents 4 fingers, and correspondingly the number 4.
Meanwhile, I don’t have any kind of clear idea of what people are on about when they say god, so doing any logical operation from there is unclear. The reason that understanding the component is important to doing an operation is that it may have an implicit modifier that affects the logical operation in and of itself.
For instance:
2 + (-2) = 4
the (-2), is not the same as 2, it’s a different component which may sometimes appear to be a 2, but getting consensus about it from people, or figuring out what to do with your fingers when you read it, might confuse people into giving an answer that is less consistent.
It appears that I’m using a consensus theory of truth. I guess that’s neccersary for any kind of discussion with more than one participant anyhow.
While I don’t agree with the way they phrased their explanation, it’s akin to saying “I’m not sure if 2 + 2 = 4 is true, but I am sure it can’t equal anything else.” Then falling back to “but there could be oddities in the foundation of mathematics that I’m not aware of” when pressed on the inconsistency.
If you claim that your understanding of logic isn’t exhaustive, I don’t see how you can also claim that X is logically impossible. (“I’m not a car expert but there is no possible way the problem is with the engine”)
Thanks for that analogy, that gives me a new way to think about it.
I believe I can agree with the 2 + 2 = 4 theorem because I already agree with agreement in the summation of the components represented.
To illustrate:
If I put up 2 figures, then another 2 fingers, I can reliable get consensus from a survey of people and my own intuition/memory that it represents 4 fingers, and correspondingly the number 4.
Meanwhile, I don’t have any kind of clear idea of what people are on about when they say god, so doing any logical operation from there is unclear. The reason that understanding the component is important to doing an operation is that it may have an implicit modifier that affects the logical operation in and of itself.
For instance:
2 + (-2) = 4
the (-2), is not the same as 2, it’s a different component which may sometimes appear to be a 2, but getting consensus about it from people, or figuring out what to do with your fingers when you read it, might confuse people into giving an answer that is less consistent.
It appears that I’m using a consensus theory of truth. I guess that’s neccersary for any kind of discussion with more than one participant anyhow.