Magnus Anderson wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 10:52 pm
Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 11:34 amIt's not equivocation! It's
polymorphism. The meaning of the operator "+" changes depending on what it operates on.
1 + 1 = 2 when operating on apples.
1 + 1 = 1 when operating on averages.
Before you can determine whether any given claim is true or false, you have to properly understand it. You have to understand what portion of the universe it is talking about and what it is saying about it. Generally, when people say "1 + 1 = 2" they are basically saying "If you take one apple and add to it another apple, you will end up with two apples". That's what is normally meant by that expression. You can, of course, change the meaning of that expression to anything you like e.g. you can say it's a code for "Chuck Norris is the 46th president of the US". In that case, "1 + 1 = 2" would be false, but only because you changed its meaning. It no longer has anything to do with the original claim.
I am not doing anything that you are accusing me of doing. I am pointing out that the "+" operator is polymorphic. I am not "changing its meaning" - I am pointing out that absent an explicit model the operator "+" in the expression "1+1" can take on
multiple (potentially infinitely many) meanings.
It only appears to you as if I am "changing" something because I am not taking any particular meaning to be the "normal" one - I am not even assuming that "1+1" is talking about integers, so you are only upset because I am
not defaulting to your own cultural biases/assumptions/denotation. If I am allowed to (and excused for) depart(ing) from courtesy and politeness...
You are berating me for being objective, impartial and unbiased when reading the expression "1+1". That makes you a bit of a c
unt.
Magnus Anderson wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 10:52 pm
There are infinitely many Mathematical universes. Ala pluralism in which to interpret the meaning of the expression "2+2=5".
There is absolutely nothing insightful and important about the claim that you can take any false expression and make it true by changing its meaning (and vice versa.) That's all you're saying -- that whether or not any given expression is true depends partly on the meaning assigned to it.
Indeed, the point has absolutely gone over your head. Devoid of a model the expression "1+1=2" is meaningless. It doesn't even mean "true"; or "false"! It doesn't mean anything.
So I am most certainly NOT taking a "false expression and making it true", I am taking a
meaningless expression; I am assigning meaning to the symbols and I am evaluating the expression to mean "true". Given the model!
The fact that you think the expression is "false" says far more about your state of mind than it does about the expression.
Well, if it's so "banal" then would you kindly make explicit the model in which the meaningless English expression "It's true but kind of banal." becomes true?
Or perhaps you are up for a challenge? GIve us a model in which the expression "x = x" becomes false?
Magnus Anderson wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 10:52 pm
Most importantly, it's dangerous, since it paves the way for logical fallacies such as equivocation.
That is a really hypocritical criticism from somebody who seems to embrace classical mathematics/logic. Your ilk constantly equivocates proof BY contradiction and proof OF contradiction.
Much like that nuance is lost on classical mathematicians/logicians; so is the nuance between equivocation and polymorphism lost on you.