🚀 go-pugleaf

On 3/12/2011 10:31 AM, Graham Cooper wrote:

> We're trying to tell you your fantastic claims
> are imaginary.
>
> LISTEN FOR ONCE DUDE!
>
> It's very evident when you consider the following
> status quo of Cantor's proof:
>
> [Jim Burns]
> All I ask is that you show us such a list.
> Pick any list. Tell us what it is.
> Use any digit-to-digit conversion. Tell us what it is.
> Make your desired anti-diagonal. Tell us what it is.
> Then tell us where in your list the anti-diagonal is.
>
> Do that, and I will agree that you have disproven
> Cantor's anti-diagonal proof.
>
> If you DON'T do that, WHY don't you? (You don't
> even have to answer that question here. Just ask
> yourself, "Why am I not doing something that will
> give me everything I want?")
>
> Jim Burns
>
> --------------------------------
>
> b e c a u s e . y o u r . a r g u m e n t
>
> r e d u c e s . t o
>
> SHOW ME A DIGIT ON THE DIAGONAL THAT
> EQUALS D AND EQUALS D+1
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> THAT is your entire argument!
>
> THAT is your proof of BIGGER THAN INFINITY!

That obviously cannot be done. All of us
"standard theoreticians" agree with you,
although Transfer Principle refuses to jump
one way or the other, as near as I can tell.

The rest of the argument shows why you have to
be able to do this impossible thing in order to
list all of the real numbers -- which is why
it is "obvious" (after some thought) that
THE REAL NUMBERS CANNOT BE LISTED.

You apparently understand all this.

Why then are you trying to disprove a proven
thing? You might as well add to 2 to 2 over and
over again until you get something other than 4.

WOW! Wouldn't that be amazing! Historic!
Earth-shaking!

Of course, the reason that getting 2 + 2 != 4
would be so amazing is that everyone knows it
ain't going to happen. You, it seems to me,
are focusing on the "Wouldn't it be amazing?"
part and ignoring the "But everyone knows it
ain't going to happen" part.

The ironic thing about all this is that
EVEN IF YOU DID disprove Cantor (Let's say
you do this in some unimaginably bizarre
alternate universe), it STILL wouldn't
get you what you are looking for.

It would be a truly amazing result, but
the most you could hope for would be that
you were an amazing, extraordinary
-- but completely human -- mathematician.

No one would conclude that the laws of
physics work any differently for you than
they do for anyone else -- because
mathematical proofs prove nothing about
the real world. At most, there is an
argument by analogy available: "This
physical (concrete) object acts like this
mathematical (abstract) object, therefore
these mathematical predictions (theorems)
should make good physical predictions."

Why not give it a rest, and go do something
where there is at least a chance of success,
like teaching pigs to fly?