Deutsche Telekom operators (and their counterparts at Telekom’s rival firms)
neatly sidestep the whole issue with their German equivalent of "You have
dialed a non-existent number”. In such cases, one hears nothing about whether
the number itself exists or not, but rather:
“Kein Anschluss unter dieser Nummer” or “Keine Verbindung unter dieser Nummer”
— literally “No connexion under this number.”
They (rightly, I would argue) assume that the issue of greatest interest to the
caller is the possibility of establishing a telephone connexion to some third
party using the number dialled.
Determining the ontological status of the number itself is left as an exercise
in which they indulge over an after-work Pilsner, or on philosophical and
mathematical internet discussion lists.
Chris Bruce,
stalling for time while he
brushes up on his Frege, in
Kiel, Germany
On 13 Oct 2016, at 15:12, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:- -------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, this is probably trivial and/or pedantic, but the above announcement is
surely false. If I have dialed a number, I must have imagined it first. If I
can imagine it, then it is NOT non-existent. A number which can be
conceptualized but does not 'really' exist seems to be an impossibility. In
other words, once a number is conceptualized, it exists necessarily.
Or no ?
Perhaps the resident Fregeans will have some comment on this.
