Rationality Quotes October 2011

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I do not understand.

(Great delicacy and tact are needed in presenting this idea, if the aim is, as it should be, to bewilder and frighted the opponent. ...)

-- Carl Linderholm, Mathematics Made Difficult

Let me explain why it's not easy to see that 5+4 is not 6.

Earlier, the numbers were defined as

2 = 1+1

3 = 1+2

4 = 1+3

5 = 1+4

6 = 1+5

7 = 1+6

8 = 1+7

9 = 1+8.

Where + is associative.

Consider a "clock" with 3 numbers, 1, 2, 3. x+y means "Start at x and advance y hours".
3

2 -> 1

Then 1+1 = 2 and 2+1 = 3, as per our definitions. Also, 3+1 = 1 (since if yo... (read more)