What is the most uninteresting number?

What is the basis for reason? And mathematics?

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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
wtf wrote:It can't be a positive integer, for the well-known reason that if there were an uninteresting positive integer, there would be a least such; and that itself would make it interesting.

My vote would go to any noncomputable real number. The fact that noncomputable numbers (numbers whose decimal digits can not possibly be generated by any algorithm; essentially random bitstrings) exist is interesting.

But no particular random real (synonym for noncomputable real) can be interesting; for the reason that no random real can be characterized by any property at all.

For example the number pi, even though it's irrational and has an endless, nonrepeating decimal representation, is still computable. It can be described in finitely many symbols by the expression, "The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry," and its decimal digits can be cranked out to any desired length (given sufficient computational resources) such as the famous Leibniz formula pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz_f ... for_%CF%80

There are uncountably many random reals. They are points on the number line that can not be described by algorithms. Any one of them has nothing interesting about it at all. It has no properties that distinguish it from any other.
The answer is there is no such number. Google my question and read Wikipedia.

PhilX
There is no number in the world that I have less interest in than your phone number. QED your answer is wrong.
Philosophy Explorer
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
wtf wrote:It can't be a positive integer, for the well-known reason that if there were an uninteresting positive integer, there would be a least such; and that itself would make it interesting.

My vote would go to any noncomputable real number. The fact that noncomputable numbers (numbers whose decimal digits can not possibly be generated by any algorithm; essentially random bitstrings) exist is interesting.

But no particular random real (synonym for noncomputable real) can be interesting; for the reason that no random real can be characterized by any property at all.

For example the number pi, even though it's irrational and has an endless, nonrepeating decimal representation, is still computable. It can be described in finitely many symbols by the expression, "The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry," and its decimal digits can be cranked out to any desired length (given sufficient computational resources) such as the famous Leibniz formula pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz_f ... for_%CF%80

There are uncountably many random reals. They are points on the number line that can not be described by algorithms. Any one of them has nothing interesting about it at all. It has no properties that distinguish it from any other.
The answer is there is no such number. Google my question and read Wikipedia.

PhilX
There is no number in the world that I have less interest in than your phone number. QED your answer is wrong.
Sorry, but you're wrong here. As I already explained, interesting/uninteresting is a personal choice. As soon as my phone number or any other number becomes uninteresting to me, it becomes interesting to me. Since my phone number is unknown to you, you have no say whether it's interesting or uninteresting to you.

PhilX
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
The answer is there is no such number. Google my question and read Wikipedia.

PhilX
There is no number in the world that I have less interest in than your phone number. QED your answer is wrong.
Sorry, but you're wrong here. As I already explained, interesting/uninteresting is a personal choice.
Exactly.. You're not important QED I'm right.
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Exactly.. You're not important QED I'm right.
Different subject. Not what I meant, obviously.

PhilX
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Arising_uk
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Arising_uk »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:...

Since you say you're done, then I take it you ran out of arguments. Better luck to you in the future.

PhilX
Not really, he's done because you refused to engage in the argument about number that he put forward so no point in continuing.
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Arising_uk wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:...

Since you say you're done, then I take it you ran out of arguments. Better luck to you in the future.

PhilX
Not really, he's done because you refused to engage in the argument about number that he put forward so no point in continuing.
I disagree.

PhilX
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Arising_uk
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Arising_uk »

Philosophy Explorer wrote: I disagree.

PhilX
Try doing some philosophy then and take his argument on-board and show how it is wrong.
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Arising_uk wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote: I disagree.

PhilX
Try doing some philosophy then and take his argument on-board and show how it is wrong.
His argument drifted off-topic so I have no desire to continue this.

PhilX
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Arising_uk
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Arising_uk »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
His argument drifted off-topic so I have no desire to continue this.

PhilX
Bollocks, you are deluded as his argument was bang-on topic but it was you who avoided it's import and the ramification for your thought. Mainly I think because you are not here to philosophise but to self-aggrandise in some weird way.
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Arising_uk wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
His argument drifted off-topic so I have no desire to continue this.

PhilX
Bollocks, you are deluded as his argument was bang-on topic but it was you who avoided it's import and the ramification for your thought. Mainly I think because you are not here to philosophise but to self-aggrandise in some weird way.
I disagree.

PhilX
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Arising_uk
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Arising_uk »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
I disagree.

PhilX
My point made.
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Arising_uk wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
I disagree.

PhilX
My point made.
Whatever, if it makes you happy.

PhilX
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Arising_uk
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Arising_uk »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Whatever, if it makes you happy.

PhilX
It does, as it's nice to watch you flounder when presented with a good argument as it demonstrates what I say about you.
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Arising_uk wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Whatever, if it makes you happy.

PhilX
It does, as it's nice to watch you flounder when presented with a good argument as it demonstrates what I say about you.
In your fantasy.

PhilX
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Arising_uk
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Re: What is the most uninteresting number?

Post by Arising_uk »

Prove me wrong. Engage with wtf's mathematical point and show him wrong.
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