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Thomas comments on Open thread, Oct. 12 - Oct. 18, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: MrMind 12 October 2015 06:57AM

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Comment author: Thomas 12 October 2015 01:11:03PM 1 point [-]

Not that it counts much, but I do believe that the ZFC is inconsistent.

Comment author: twanvl 12 October 2015 02:12:23PM 2 points [-]

Why do you believe that? And do you also believe that ZF is inconsistent?

Comment author: Thomas 12 October 2015 03:20:04PM 0 points [-]

Yes. It's not the Choice axiom which is problematic, but the infinity itself. So it doesn't mater if ZF or ZFC.

Why do I believe this? It's known for some time now, that you can't have an uniform probability distribution over the set of all naturals. That would be an express road to paradoxes.

The problem is, that even if you have a probability distribution where P(0)=0.5, P(1)=0.25, P(2)=0.125 and so on ... you can then invite a super-task of swapping two random naturals (using this distribution) at the time 0. Then the next swapping at 0.5. Then the next swapping at 0.75 ... and so on.

The question is, what is the probability that 0 will remain in its place? It can't be more than 0, after the completion of the super-task after just a second. On the other hand, for every other number, that probability of being on the leftmost position is also zero.

We apparently can construct an uniform distribution over the naturals. Which is bad.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 12 October 2015 03:25:13PM 8 points [-]

The limit of your distributions is not a distribution so there's no problem.

If there's any sort of inconsistency in ZF or PA or any other major system currently in use, it will be much harder to find than this. At a meta level, if there were this basic a problem, don't you think it would have already been noticed?

Comment author: MrMind 13 October 2015 08:18:48AM 2 points [-]

If there's any sort of inconsistency in ZF or PA or any other major system currently in use, it will be much harder to find than this.

Indeed, since you can prove ZFC consistent with the aid of an inaccessible cardinal. And you can prove the consistency of an inaccessible cardinal with a Mahlo cardinal, and so on.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 13 October 2015 01:00:00PM 4 points [-]

I'm not sure that's strong evidence for the thesis in question. If ZFC had a low-lying inconsistency, ZFC+an inaccessible cardinal would still prove ZFC consistent, but it would be itself an inconsistent system that was effectively lying to you. Same remarks apply to any large cardinal axiom.

Comment author: Thomas 12 October 2015 04:03:26PM -2 points [-]

What can one expect after this super-task is done to see?

Nothing?

At a meta level, if there were this basic a problem, don't you think it would have already been noticed?

It has been noticed, but never resolved properly. A consensus among top mathematicians, that everything is/must be okay prevails.

One dissident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=27&v=4DNlEq0ZrTo

Comment author: twanvl 12 October 2015 04:13:10PM 4 points [-]

What can one expect after this super-task is done to see?

This question presupposes that the task will ever be done. Since, if I understand correctly, you are doing an infinite number of swaps, you will never be done.

You could similarly define a super-task (whatever that is) of adding 1 to a number. Start with 0, at time 0 add 1, add one more at time 0.5, and again at 0.75. What is the value when you are done? Clearly you are counting to infinity, so even though you started with a natural number, you don't end up with one. That is because you don't "end up" at all.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 12 October 2015 08:34:24PM 3 points [-]

Phrasing it as a "super-task" relies on intuitions that are not easily formalized in either PA or ZFC. Think instead in terms of a limit, where your nth distribution and let n go to infinity. This avoids the intuitive issues. Then just ask what mean by the limit. You are taking what amounts to a pointwise limit. At this point, what matters then is that it does not follow that a pointwise limit of probability distributions is itself a probability distribution.

If you prefer a different example that doesn't obfuscate as much what is going on we can do it just as well with the reals. Consider the situation where the nth distribution is uniform on the interval from n to n+1. And look at the limit of that (or if you insist move back to having it speed up over time to make it a supertask). Visually what is happening each step is a little 1 by 1 square moving one to the right. Now note that the limit of these distributions is zero everywhere, and not in the nice sense of zero at any specific point but integrates to a finite quantity, but genuinely zero.

This is essentially the same situation, so nothing in your situation has to do with specific aspects of countable sets.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 12 October 2015 08:41:10PM 1 point [-]

Wildberger's complaints are well known, and frankly not taking very seriously. The most positive thing one can say about it is that some of the ideas in his rational trignometry do have some interesting math behind them, but that's it. Pretty much no mathematican who has listened to what he has to say have taken any of it seriously.

Comment author: Thomas 13 October 2015 07:05:57AM -1 points [-]

Sure, I know he is not taken very seriously. That is his own point, too.

In the time of Carl Sagan, in the year 1986 or so, I became an anti Saganist. I realized that his million civilization in our galaxy alone is an utter bullshit. Most likely only one exists.

Every single astro-biologist or biologist would have said to a dissident like myself - you don't understand evolution, sire, it's mandatory!

20 years later, on this site, Rare Earth is a dominant position. Or at least - no aliens position.

On the National Geographic channel and elsewhere, you still listen "how previously unexpected number of Earth like planets will be detected".

I am not afraid of mathematicians more than of astrobiologists. Largely unimpressed.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 13 October 2015 01:06:57PM 3 points [-]

I'm not sure what your point is here. Yes, experts sometimes have a consensus that turns out to be wrong. If one is lucky one can even turn out to be right when the experts are wrong if one takes sufficiently many contrarian positions (although the idea that many millions of civilizations in our galaxy was a universal among both biologists and astro-biologists is definitely questionable), but in this case, the experts have really thought about these ideas a lot, and haven't gotten anywhere.

If you prefer an example other than Wildberger, when Edward Nelson claimed to have a contradiction in PA, many serious mathematicians looked at what he had done. It isn't like there's some special mathematical mob which goes around suppressing these things. I literally had a lunch-time conversation a few days ago with some other mathematician where the primary topic was essentially if there is an inconsistency in ZFC where would we expect to find it and how much of math would likely be salvageable? In fact, that conversation was one of the things that lead me along to the initial question in this subthread.

I am not afraid of mathematicians more than of astrobiologists. Largely unimpressed.

Neither of these groups are groups you should be afraid of and I'm a little confused as why you think fear should be relevant.

Comment author: MrMind 13 October 2015 08:20:08AM 0 points [-]

Yes. It's not the Choice axiom which is problematic, but the infinity itself. So it doesn't mater if ZF or ZFC.

I doubt that any proof in FAI will use infinitary methods.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 13 October 2015 12:55:23PM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure why you think that. This may depend strongly on what you mean by an in infinitary method. Is induction infinitary? Is transfinite induction infinitary?