A new point of view on Cantor's diagonalization arguments

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The discussion revolves around a critique of a new perspective on Cantor's diagonalization and cardinality presented in a linked PDF. The main contention is that the alephs discussed in the article do not align with conventional mathematical definitions, leading to inconsistencies in cardinality claims. Participants argue that the proposed system fails to adhere to established mathematical conventions, rendering it incapable of serving as a substitute for cardinality. Additionally, the conversation touches on the implications of unique structural properties in infinite sets and the nature of mappings between them. Ultimately, the debate highlights fundamental disagreements about the interpretation of infinity and cardinality in mathematics.
  • #91
come on organic, don't play this game. you know exactly what "magical" means. magic means that you can prove something by a picture only without a rigorous proof.

btw, organic, my paper was not about SASs.
 
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  • #92
phoenixthoth ,

What is proof for you?
 
  • #93
self-evidence. what's it to you?

there are two of me around here. but who is the master and who is the apprentice?
 
  • #94
Then why a self-evidence thing has to be proved?
 
  • #95
Originally posted by Organic
Then why a self-evidence thing has to be proved?

touche.

why don't you ask yourself the same question, or, rather, why you have to go around proving stuff all the time?
 
  • #96
What I understand don't has to be proved to me unless someone (including myself) show me that there is a deeper way to understand this thing.
 
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  • #97
agreement is the seed of salvation, organic. we are in total agreement.
 
  • #99
it looks to me, although I'm just an amateur mathematician, that you have innovation and spirit. yet you lack the ability to articulate yourself within the confines of mathematical rigor.

i would suggest going to school and learning how to do this. this requires a lot of boring homework. i recommend you do your homework.

and, organic, help has arrived.
 
  • #100
phoenixthoth,

For me my pictures are the best tools to understand my ideas.

I don't want to seat in a boring classroom and learn how to use other person's tools of understanding.

I enjoy every moment in my own independent way to give simple shapes to my ideas, and I don't care if the academic persons don't understand it. and specially pure "stuffed" mathematicians that are doing their best to escape from real life influence on their rigorous methods.

I can find persons that can understand my ideas, and these persons do not afraid to open themselves and their methods to the complexity of the real life, for example:

Code:
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. A.M.Selvam [mailto:amselvam@eth.net]
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 10:04 AM
To: Shadmy Doron
Subject: A new approach for the definition of a NUMBER

1 March 2004

Dear Doron  Shadmi 

 I am indebted to you for your email dated 
16 February giving references of your valuable 
research work.
 
 I find your original research work very valuable 
for developing a simple unified theory with ramifications
in the numerical modeling of nonlinear dynamical 
systems/processes. 

 Your research work would benefit many of the scientists 
particularly those who are working in the area of 
numerical modeling.

                                   with best regards
                                    yours sincerely
                              Dr. (Mrs.) A. Mary Selvam

Papers of Dr. (Mrs.) A. Mary Selvam can be found here:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/5833/pub11.html
 
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  • #101
The problem, as I see it, is that you seem to be spending a lot of effort to assert that your tools talk about things that they don't.

For instance, what ever concept of "quantity" you have in your system, it is different from what a mathematician calls cardinality. You've done a great deal of asserting that your tools are proving that things mathematicians know about cardinality is wrong, when all you're really doing is discovering the differences between cardinality and your concept.

You seem almost fanatical in this pursuit, which is why many people get turned off by your theorizing. To be frank, because of your approach, I lost all interest in your ideas because you just couldn't seem to get past the "Look, I've proved mathematics wrong!" mentality.

The main reason I keep posting in your threads is because I think you're not a hopelessly lost cause like most so-called crackpots. (and that I'm a glutton for punishment!) You still seem to have the "This is so obvious, why can't they see it the way I do?" mentality about things, but you do sometimes seem to learn and adapt in the face of criticism.


Also, I hope you don't think that rigor is all mathematicians do. It is the ultimate standard, but intuition and heuristics have a lot to do with how we do things. For instance, on a great many problems I will start with "this is how my gut says to do this problem", and then if it looks promising, I begin to fill in the details. Filling in the details often gives me a good proof, and other times it illuminates a flaw I made in my intuitive reasoning. There is a lot of mathematics built up on things that are still conjecture; for instance, there are a lot of theorems of the form "If the Riemann hypothesis is true, then this other statement is true". Mathematically, one does not need to have proved the hypothesis with full rigor to reason about things; you just have to acknowledge that you haven't derived an "absolute" fact, but instead a "relative" fact.
 
  • #102
hmm...
 
  • #103
Oh, well, time to feed my habit again.

It appears by 'complete' you mean a set is complete iff you can write down every single element of it on a bit of paper (possibly a very big bit of paper) without omitting anything. Is that a reasonable interpretation of your definition of a 'complete set'?
 
  • #104
Well, assuming you are using all those terms in the correct manner, the infinite binary tree has no leaves; there is not last level.

So perhas you ought to explain what all those things are. Given you didn't understand why a tree wasn't an uncountable totally disconnected set, it's very hard to even begin to say what you think any of these things are. That, and the fact you refuse to state what they are, of course.

By definition the root and leaf set of a tree is in the tree, when they exist: there is the infinite unrooted binary tree which has neither.
 
  • #105
Anyways, I would like to make my point about removing the leaves again:

One of these two diagrams is your "binary tree" with the lables removed.
The other of these two diagrams is your "binary tree" with the rightmost column chopped off, and the labels removed.
To draw each of them, I drew enough of the tree to represent the first 16 rows:

Code:
          /1
         1 
        / \0
       1   
       /\ /1
      /  0
     /    \0
 ... 1    
     \    /1
      \  1 
       \/ \0
       0  
        \ /1
         0
          \0
          
          /1
         1
        / \0
       1  
       /\ /1
      /  0 
     /    \0
 ... 0    
     \    /1
      \  1
       \/ \0
       0  
        \ /1
         0
          \0
 ...

Code:
          /1
         1 
        / \0
       1   
       /\ /1
      /  0
     /    \0
 ... 1    
     \    /1
      \  1 
       \/ \0
       0  
        \ /1
         0
          \0
          
          /1
         1
        / \0
       1  
       /\ /1
      /  0 
     /    \0
 ... 0    
     \    /1
      \  1
       \/ \0
       0  
        \ /1
         0
          \0
 ...

Can you tell which one is which? I can't.
 
  • #106
seems like a fractal. at least it seems self-similar.
 
  • #107
Can you tell which one is which? I can't.
If each notation represents more then one value then there is a difference between those trees (finite of infinte).

Again you counting the number of the notations and not the magnitude that each one of them representing.

If you don't remember then my answer to you was:

Your calculation is not right because:

1) aleph0 in my point of view stands for a general notation for any collection of infinitely many elements, and its value is flexible.

2) for example: By saying that a=(aleph0-aleph0) < b=aleph0 we mean that there are aleph0 elements in b that are not covered by a.

Also by a=(aleph0-2^aleph0) < b=aleph0 we mean that there are 2^aleph0 elements in b that are not covered by a.

There are no absolute magnitudes when we deal with collections of infinitely many elements, and no arithmetical operation (finite or infinite) can change their property of being infinitely many elements.

Shortly speaking, no arithmetical operation (finite or infinite) can change the “–“ or “+” sign in a collocation of infinitely many elements.

3) in my Binary tree the aleph0 width magnitude and the 2^aleph0 length magnitude, depends on each other, therefore their relative proportion (notated as width=aleph0 < length=2^aleph0) was not changed by your operation.


You still ignore the inner structure of infinitely many elements, because after your operation we have this list:
Code:
 {...,3,2,1}=N
     2 2 2
     ^ ^ ^
     | | |
     v v v
[b]{[/b]...,1,1,1[b]}[/b]<--> 1
 ...,1,1,1  
 ...,1,1,0 <--> 2 
 ...,1,1,0   
 ...,1,0,1 <--> 3 
 ...,1,0,1   
 ...,1,0,0 <--> 4 
 ...,1,0,0   
 ...,0,1,1 <--> 5 
 ...,0,1,1  
 ...,0,1,0 <--> 6
 ...,0,1,0  
 ...,0,0,1 <--> 7
 ...,0,0,1  
 ...,0,0,0 <--> 8
 ...,0,0,0  
 ...

So, as you see aleph0-1 < aleph0

By the way, the result of your oparation is ((aleph0)-1) < ((2^aleph0)-aleph0)and the reason that it is jusut -aleph0 and not -2^aleph0, can be clearly shown here:
Code:
 <---Arithmetic magnitude 

 {...,3,2,1,0} = Z*
     2 2 2 2  
     ^ ^ ^ ^   
     | | | |   
     v v v v  
{...,[b]1-1-1-1[/b]} <--> 1  Geometric magnitude(based on the 
 ...,1,1,1,[b]0[/b]  <--> 2          |          thin notations)          
 ...,1,1,[b]0[/b]/                   |
 ...,1,1/0,                   |
 ...,1,[b]0[/b], ,                   |
 ...,1/0, ,                   |
 ...,1|0, ,                   |
 ...,1|0, ,                   |
 ...,[b]0[/b]/ , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...,0, , ,                   |
 ...                          V

After your operation we have:

( ((aleph0)-1) < ((2^aleph0)-aleph0) ) < ( aleph0 < 2^aleph0 )

Maybe this can help:

Code:
          /[b]1[/b]_1
         [b]1[/b]_2 
        / \[b]0[/b]_1
       [b]1[/b]_4   
       /\ /[b]1[/b]_1
      /  [b]0[/b]_2
     /    \[b]0[/b]_1
 ... [b]1[/b]_8    
     \    /[b]1[/b]_1
      \  [b]1[/b]_2 
       \/ \[b]0[/b]_1
       [b]0[/b]_4  
        \ /[b]1[/b]_1
         [b]0[/b]_2
          \[b]0[/b]_1
          
          /[b]1[/b]_1
         [b]1[/b]_2
        / \[b]0[/b]_1
       [b]1[/b]_4  
       /\ /[b]1[/b]_1
      /  [b]0[/b]_2 
     /    \[b]0[/b]_1
 ... [b]0[/b]_8    
     \    /[b]1[/b]_1
      \  [b]1[/b]_2
       \/ \[b]0[/b]_1
       [b]0[/b]_4  
        \ /[b]1[/b]_1
         [b]0[/b]_2
          \[b]0[/b]_1
 ...
Code:
          /[b]1[/b]_2
         [b]1[/b]_4 
        / \[b]0[/b]_2
       [b]1[/b]_8   
       /\ /[b]1[/b]_2
      /  [b]0[/b]_4
     /    \[b]0[/b]_2
 ... [b]1[/b]_16    
     \    /[b]1[/b]_2
      \  [b]1[/b]_4 
       \/ \[b]0[/b]_2
       [b]0[/b]_8  
        \ /[b]1[/b]_2
         [b]0[/b]_4
          \[b]0[/b]_2
          
          /[b]1[/b]_2
         [b]1[/b]_4
        / \[b]0[/b]_2
       [b]1[/b]_8  
       /\ /[b]1[/b]_2
      /  [b]0[/b]_4 
     /    \[b]0[/b]_2
 ... [b]0[/b]_16    
     \    /[b]1[/b]_2
      \  [b]1[/b]_4
       \/ \[b]0[/b]_2
       [b]0[/b]_8  
        \ /[b]1[/b]_2
         [b]0[/b]_4
          \[b]0[/b]_2
 ...
 
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  • #108
Dear Organic

What is the relation betwen your theoy to Frege fundaumanetal work fron 1878 that establish the foundation of mathematical Logic ?

Thank you
Moshe
 
  • #110
Thank you Organic !

There is allot of similarity to your concept of a a number to the way Prege develop first order logic but without the redundancy that you look on. So in some sense Prege work may be consider as a one example to your theory.

What about relativity theory of Ablert Einstein, since Prege was before Him ?

Thank you
Moshek
 
  • #111
Moshek,

All I have now is Frege's basic information structures + uncertainty and redundancy as bulit-in properties of it.

Through my point of view these proprties have to be taken as basics properties of any modern theoretical research of any information system, like Math language for example.
 
  • #112
After Albert Einstein there is no meaning to talk about space without time and vise versa.

Through my point of view there is no meaning to talk about quantity without structure and vise versa.



General conclusion:


The internal structure of any given quantity (finite or infinite) cannot be ignored.
 
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  • #113
Dear Organic :

The similarity and also the deferent
of your theory to Prege theory
is really amassing me !

Do you mean that Einstein develop new way
to look on the world but he still
was using Newton mathematics
and you suggest us and
alternativ mathematics ?

Moshek



www.icm2006.org
 
  • #114
Hi Moshek,

Newton mathematics was a real break through that gave us the ability to deal with momentum in the real world.

Now it is about time to deal with complexity in the real world, but in my opinion it cannot be done if structural property of any mathematical product is not examined together with its quantitative property.

Shortly speaking any mathematical product is at least structural/quantitative product.

Ferge started to develop the connection between information's structure and logic, but its colleagues did not understand its attitude, ignored the information structure and developed only the private case of information structure of no_redundancy_no_uncertainty form.
 
Last edited:
  • #115
Organic:

I think that Your are talking about mathematics without any
modeling or equations !

How all this is relate
to how Wittgenstein see mathematics?

Thank you
Moshek
 
  • #116
I forgot I had aborted my last reply.


If you'll allow me to use your analogy:

Einstein's great idea was that we should stop pretending we know the answer to "What IS the universe?" and focus on the question "What do we know ABOUT the universe?"


Modern mathematics uses the same idea; we don't care what things are, we only care about what we can do with them.


From a purely logical perspective, this is a phenomenal trick; if all of our theorems are based only on "What can we do with these things?", and are completely independant of "What are these things?", then all of our theorems are valid even if we have the wrong answer to "What are these things?"


This is why I think your approach is fundamentally flawed. You are focusing so hard on answering the question "What are these things?", but the question is irrelevant!

(And, for the record, I don't think your answer is even a valid one to this question)
 
  • #117
This is why I think your approach is fundamentally flawed. You are focusing so hard on answering the question "What are these things?", but the question is irrelevant!
What is the connection between not ignoring the structural property
of the natural numbers and the question "What are these things?"

The inner structure of the natural numbers can be shown here:

http://www.geocities.com/complementarytheory/ETtable.pdf
 
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  • #118
Dear Hurkyl (this time please answer to this post),


My basic approach about the infinity concept is that redundancy and uncertainty are naturally involved, no more no less.

Therefore aleph0 is a notation that stands for general and flexible "cloud like" thing.

Cantor's thing is a frozen one, mine is not.

I think that my approach is much more interesting and fruitful than Cantor's approach.

Please let me put these two different approaches "on the table" and I would like to examine them together with you.

I am going to write my point of view on Cantor’s approach in a very simple way that (I hope) can be understood by you.

Please read it, and open my eyes to important things that I omit, don’t understand, distorting and so on.

So here it is:

1) Let set C be a complete non-empty binary tree where complete non-empty binary tree exists iff both root AND all its leafs are in C.

2) Let RT be the root , let LF be the all leafs,
therefore RT AND LF are in C --> [RT , LF].

( In my point of view RT XOR LF are in C --> ( (RT… , …LF) OR (LT… , LF] OR
[RT ,…LF) ) AND NOT [RT , LF] where “…” means unreachable. )

Now, from my point of view I see these basic problems when RT AND LF are in C:

1) If both RT AND LF are in C, then C must be a finite set.

2) If C is a non-finite set (through my point of view C is forced to be a non-finite set) then the base value 2 (which is the fundamental structural property of the non-empty binary-tree) cannot exist. Also RT value is unknown.

We must realize that if RT AND LF are in C AND C is a non-finite set, then the structural property of our information (in this case we are talking about the binary tree structure) collapsed into itself (we have no infinitely many elements anymore) and cannot be used as an input by Math language .

Therefore the expression 2^aleph0 cannot exist and we cannot construct
the transfinite universes.

Shortly speaking, what is called uncountable is not uncountable but simply does not exist in any form of input that can be used by Math language.

Through my point of view base 2 can exit
iff (C is finite) OR (RT XOR LF are in C)

Please show me how C is a non-finite set where
(RT AND LF are in C) AND (base 2 exists --> binary tree exists).

Also please tell me what is the value of RT when RT AND LF are in C AND C is a non-finite set.
 
  • #119
What is the connection between not ignoring the structural property
of the natural numbers and the question "What are these things?"

Exercise: try defining "structural property" without making any reference to what a natural number "is".



If both RT AND LF are in C, then C must be a finite set.
if RT AND LF are in C AND C is a non-finite set, then the structural property of our information ... collapsed into itself ... and cannot be used as an input by Math language

We math people call that a contradiction. And it CAN be used in "Math language" through the Law of contradiction:

"If P implies a contradiction, then P is false"

Or, more formally:

<br /> P \rightarrow (Q \wedge \neg Q) \vdash \neg P<br />

or equivalently

<br /> P \rightarrow Q, \neg Q \vdash \neg P<br />


Or, informally, it goes like this:

Let's make an assumption (call it P).
We derive a contradiction.
We conclude our assumption was wrong.

Or, if I may try and translate into Organic-speak:

If P causes our information to collapse, then P cannot be true.



Therefore the expression 2^aleph0 cannot exist and we cannot construct the transfinite universes.

And how does 2^aleph0 relate to anything above this statement in your post?
 
  • #120
Exercise: try defining "structural property" without making any reference to what a natural number "is".
I did more then thet, it can be found here:
http://www.geocities.com/complementarytheory/count.pdf

You ignore the inner information structure of the natural numbers,
I don't.

Therefore your natural numbers are private case of my natural numbers
as can be clearly shown here:
http://www.geocities.com/complementarytheory/ETtable.pdf
Or, if I may try and translate into Organic-speak:

If P causes our information to collapse, then P cannot be true.
You cannot translate my ideas by your mathematical tools, because you ignore the information structure of the Binary tree as irrelevant to you, and looking only on its quantitative "shadow" that falling on the "real line".
And how does 2^aleph0 relate to anything above this statement in your post?
So you did not understand me then:

1) On what basis you translate me?

2) After you read all what I wrote can you answer to this?:

Please show me how C is a non-finite set where
(RT AND LF are in C) AND (base 2 exists --> binary tree exists).

Also please tell me what is the value of RT when RT AND LF are in C AND C is a non-finite set.
 
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