On Feb 6, 2008, at 6:41 AM, Avril Styrman wrote:
> Chris,
>
> I'll have to explain the background a little. The overall mathematical
> ideology that I'm holding is finitism, and I argue that finitism is
> not just
> an alternative to platonism and transfinitism, no more than slavery
> is an
> alternative to freedom. Slavery is wrong, and so is uncontrolled
> platonism.
> The reason for this is that it is better for the human kind to throw
> away
> the abracadabraic things from mathematics. And that's a good enough
> justification for finitism. (01)
Ah, I see, well, you are clearly more interested in ideology than
mathematics or knowledge engineering, and that is not something that
ought to be debated in this forum. You might try your luck on the
USENET groups sci.logic and sci.math, where actual mathematicians
entertain themselves arguing with extremists, ideologues, and assorted
crackpots who believe that there are deep logical or conceptual flaws
in classical mathematics. Just for the record, I do think the sort of
"strict" finitism (a.k.a. "ultra-intuitionism") you appear to be
advocating is an interesting philosophical ideology, though only when
argued by those who have a deep understanding of classical mathematics
(e.g., Alexander Yessenin-Volpin, David Isles). (02)
Regards, (03)
-chris (04)
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