Barkley_Rosser comments on Infinite Certainty - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 January 2008 06:49AM

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Comment author: Barkley_Rosser 09 January 2008 05:44:27PM 0 points [-]

Well, the real reason why it is useful in arithmetic to accept that 2+2=4 is that this is part of a deeper relation in the arithmetic field regarding relations between the three basic arithmetic operations: addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. Thus, 2 is the solution to the following question: what is x such that x plus x equals x times x equals x to the x power? And, of course, all of these operations equal 4.