RichardKennaway comments on Respond to what they probably meant - Less Wrong

11 Post author: adamzerner 17 January 2015 11:37PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 January 2015 02:41:37PM 0 points [-]

This therefore implies that there must exist numbers which cannot be precisely specified at all.

And among these, there is the smallest undefinable number.

Comment author: Epictetus 23 January 2015 02:15:04PM 1 point [-]

And among these, there is the smallest undefinable number.

There isn't. The collection of positive, undefinable numbers is bounded below by zero, but doesn't actually have a smallest element (due to the reals not being well-ordered).

Comment author: gjm 22 January 2015 04:20:40PM 1 point [-]

I was going to say "Congratulations, you just proved the halting theorem." -- but actually I think the paradox you're gesturing at fails to "work" for shallower reasons (e.g., the reals not being well-ordered -- trivially not by the usual ordering, and less trivially not by anything computable, because it's consistent with ZF for there to be no well-ordering of the reals).

Comment author: CCC 23 January 2015 01:02:23PM 0 points [-]

the smallest undefinable number.

If you mean the smallest undefinable positive number, then isn't that epsilon?