[lit-ideas] Re: Imagination and maths [and maybe more.....]
- From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:08:41 -0500
JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx writes:
:
: <<The people who really quarrel with the excluded middle are those
: mathematicians called "intuitionists," who will not, as I recall
: accept existence proofs that depend on the law of the excluded
: middle.>>
:
: This is interesting. I'd be interested to know on what basis they refuse
: those proofs.
:
: Julie Krueger
The basis is simply that they do not accept the Law of the Excluded
Middle. They don't accept any mathematical objects that cannot
be constructed without reliance on the law of the Excluded Middle.
One consequence is, again as I recall, that they do not accept any
transfinite numbers, i.e., numbers greater than a countable infinity.
And, to make matters worse, they are almost all Dutch.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
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