Eugine_Nier comments on A wild theist platonist appears, to ask about the path - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Hang 08 May 2012 11:23AM

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Comment author: RolfAndreassen 10 May 2012 09:39:03PM 0 points [-]

The platonist certainly agrees. The test I described would only work for "accurate" maps of the territory. The platonist would consider PA to be an accurate (but incomplete) map of the actual natural numbers, while the formal system you described is not.

Ok, but what is the test which distinguishes between accurate and inaccurate maps? It seems to me that the reasoning here has become circular: It is asserted that the number 2 exists because otherwise, formal system X would be unable to prove it; and also that formal system X is a good test because the number 2 exists. I feel that at this point, you ought to abandon the formal systems and just go for straightforwardly asserting that the number 2 exists in a mystical, intuitive sense which is not open to rational disproof, but which you can use to test formal systems for accuracy.

If you would be willing, on these grounds, to assert with some confidence that the computer will never print any more pairs, why would you demure from asserting, on these same grounds, and with this same confidence, "A largest pair of twin primes exists, and this most-recently printed pair is it."?

Because this does not seem to me to match the meaning of the word 'exists'. If I say that Planet X exists, I can point to it with a telescope and I expect in principle to be able to travel there. If I say that a species of animals exists, I am asserting the possibility of shooting one and eating it. What am I asserting when I say that a number exists? If it's that a particular computer will print so many numbers and then stop, then I think this is not the same class of assertion as in the two previous examples, and it ought to have a different word.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 11 May 2012 01:37:55AM 1 point [-]

Ok, but what is the test which distinguishes between accurate and inaccurate maps?

Both maps are accurate maps of different parts of the territory.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 11 May 2012 02:19:47AM -1 points [-]

Yet they both make assertions about the number 0, its successor, and its successor's successor.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 12 May 2012 04:07:53AM 2 points [-]

They use the word 'successor' to mean slightly different things.