randallsquared comments on How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3 - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 September 2007 11:00PM

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Comment author: bigjeff5 04 March 2011 04:12:24AM 9 points [-]

When it was noticed in the 1800's that the perihelion of Mercury did not match what Newton's inverse-square law of gravity predicted, did we change the way math works? Or did we change our understanding of gravity?

Math is the most fundamental understanding of reality that we have. It is the most thoroughly supported and proven aspect of science that I know of. That doesn't mean that our understanding of math can't be fundamentally flawed, but it does mean that math is the last place we expect to find a problem when our observations don't match our expectations.

In other words, when assigning probabilities to whether math is wrong or Newton's Theory of Gravity is wrong, the probability we assign to math itself being wrong is something like 0.000001% (sorry, I don't know nearly enough math to make it less than that) and Newton's Gravity being wrong something like 99.999999%.

See what I'm saying?

Comment author: randallsquared 04 March 2011 04:23:02AM 4 points [-]

Yup. I think we agree. My disagreeing post was a mere misunderstanding of what you were saying.

Comment author: bigjeff5 04 March 2011 04:53:16PM 4 points [-]

After a few recent posts of mine it looks like I need to work on my phrasing in order to make my points clear.

No harm no foul.