RolfAndreassen comments on "What Is Wrong With Our Thoughts" - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 May 2009 07:24AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 19 May 2009 11:33:38AM *  0 points [-]

I'd unify your "So What" with "meaningless" into a single category "does not constrain observations". Math passes the test inasmuch as it constrains observations about outcomes of proof checking.

But now some people will complain (are already complaining) that we reject the majority of humanity's thought.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 27 May 2009 03:57:57PM 0 points [-]

Again, it does seem observable that nobody has explained why three is prime and four isn't. (I'm not sure you can actually use 'why' in an intelligible way here; possibly I'm being confused by non-mathematical language applied to math.) It's not an observation I would expect anyone to care about, and possibly it may be the equivalent of nobody having seen something invisible; but it does seem to make a statement that could in principle have gone the other way.

Comment author: thomblake 27 May 2009 04:29:05PM 0 points [-]

I agree that I'm not sure how you're intending to use 'why' here, and I'm pretty sure there's a good answer for any particular meaning.

To answer the question in a possibly unsatisfactory way, 3 is prime because it is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number factors, whereas 4 is not prime because it has more than two distinct natural number factors.