cousin_it comments on The Lifespan Dilemma - Less Wrong

39 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 September 2009 06:45PM

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Comment author: Alicorn 10 September 2009 11:33:39PM 4 points [-]

For example, there are obviously as many prime numbers as there are naturals

You are guaranteed to lose me if you say things like this, especially if you put in "obviously". It's obvious to me (if false, in some freaky math way) that there are more natural numbers than prime numbers. The opposite of this statement is therefore not obvious to me.

Comment author: cousin_it 10 September 2009 11:44:46PM *  4 points [-]

The common-sense concept of "as many" or "as much" does not have a unique counterpart in mathematics: there are several formalizations for different purposes. In one widely used formalization (cardinality) there are as many primes as there are naturals, and this is indeed obvious for that formalization. If we take some other way of assigning sizes to number sets, like natural density, our two sets won't be equal any longer. And tomorrow you could invent some new formula that would give a third, completely different answer :-) It's ultimately pointless to argue which idea is "more intuitive"; the real test is what works in applications and what yields new interesting theorems.