🚀 go-pugleaf

	IS THERE A NUMBER BIGGER THAN 100 ?


A thief who has stolen a carpet takes it to a bazaar and
loudly hawks his ware by asking for one hundred dollars. 
A customer walks up, pays the money and departs with the
carpet. A man approaches and asks him;

"Why did you sell it for only $100? "

The thief is surprised ;

"Is there a number bigger than 100 ?"

	-------

Humans probably understand and learn by analogy. If the analogy can be
put into one-to-one form, then it becomes an isomorphism. If it can
be formalized via the use of unambiguous symbols (i.e. mathematics) then 
we can derive and make precise and unambiguous statements about the
implications and ramifications of statements.

There's a necessary evolutionary direction when making comparisons
and making up models. Modern chemistry cannot be explained in
terms of the classical Greek one based on the fundamental elements of
water, fire, air, wood etc. It's the other way around.

In order to put a new/different order on things one must of
necessity appeal to new terminology and to already structured
objects -- the present order and present terminology being 
insufficient. That's the reason every new idea seems to 
require its own baggage and seems to attack the old one when
in reality it comes out of the old one and constitutes only
a small change from the old one. In time, it can be clearly seen
but the only way it can be done is if both the new and the old
are seen in the light of a more general construction. That was the
case with generative vs Bloomfieldian.... Numerous examples
can be found in lots of other fields.

And not everything is all-or-nothing and not everything in
life is linear. Some are more complex. And the more complex
things are, more difficult they are to model. Human constructs,
unlike inanimate matter that physics studies, are much
more complicated. That requires more complex and more powerful
methods, not less. It might even require numbers bigger than
100 !
-- 

	mark	

   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
   hubey@pilot.njin.net               ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey