[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:52:25 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "College Dropout John O'Connor" <wittrsamr@...>
wrote:
<snip>
>
> What is left out? In your sequence the numbers that come after. Could they
> ever be definitively and completely listed? No, because that is not in
> keeping with the game in which these numbers are deployed in this way.
>
> I write:
> So how can something be left out if this something can never be included?
The next number in the sequence is left out, and the next, and the next and so
forth.
> If I can never count to infinity, then it obviously makes no sense to speak
> of infinity as a number.
I didn't say infinity is left out because infinity isn't something that could
be included. It's not a thing or object though, as a concept, we may refer to
it as an object of reference and thus one could re-write the statement in such
a way as to include that.
But by "left out" what I had in mind were the numbers in the series, which,
being open-ended would be a demonstration of something infinite, namely a
series that could not be completed. As a demonstratiion of an infinite series,
reference to such a series could be taken as a proxy for the concept of
infinity.
> If the endlessness of numbers is contained by them, then there is nothing
> more to be said.
I didn't say anything about "contained". The three dots of the ellipsis can, in
that context, be taken as a reference to the notion of infinity. Nothing is
"contained".
> And the same goes for specific instances such as the number sequences we
> have covered, the ellipse and some of its applications, etc.
>
> > I write:
> > You definitions are not definitive? Is this not a contradiction? It is
> > nonsense.
>
> You wrote:
> Who says definitions must be definitive by dint of their being "definitions"?
> Aren't you just being misled by the obvious similarity and common etymology
> of the two words? Isn't it more nonsensical (in the sense of confusing common
> linguistic heritage or sounds with common meaning) to suggest, as you do,
> that to be a definition implies definitiveness? Haven't you considered the
> possibility of erroneous definitions, or those that are inadequately stated,
> or those that are incomplete (as in the open ended nature of the number
> sequence you give us above)?
>
> What kind of nonsense would it be? I suspect #2 would be the proper category,
> to make a mistake which is so obvious it ought to have been avoided.
>
> I write:
> What? Erroneous definitions? Incomplete definitions? I surely couldn't
> call them definitions. And yes, I think etymology is quite important. But I
> think this little squabble has gone far off the railings.
>
Are there no erroneous definitions? No incomplete definitions? Are all
definitions equal? Are all dictionaries? Must etymology's importance in some
contexts lead to its being taken as important in all contexts?
<snip>
SWM
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