Re: Storing data and code in a Db with LISP-like interface

From: J M Davitt <jdavitt_at_aeneas.net>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 17:39:34 GMT
Message-ID: <qb57g.21751$YI5.19664@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com>

vc wrote:

> J M Davitt wrote:
> 

>>Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>
>>>On 5 May 2006 09:54:03 -0700, vc wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On 5 May 2006 04:18:44 -0700, vc wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>>"Die ganze
>>>>Zahl schuf der liebe Gott, alles Übrige ist Menschenwerk"
>>
>>And I've felt that Leopold got it backwards: the reals are
>>real, integers are perceptions.

> 
> 
> So Pi or e are more real to you than two or three of your friends ?

We're talking numbers, not friends. It has to do with the perception of "integer-ness." Take a tree.

"How many trees is that?"

"Uh, one."

Cut off a branch. "How many trees is that?"

"Still, one."

Hmm. Removing a branch didn't change it's tree-ness. But if you continue removing branches, eventually the answer will be, "That's not a tree; none." And the branches removed aren't counted. But they're there.

As to friends: some are better than others. If my best friend is 1 friend, is someone who is less a friend, say, 5/8 friend?

My point is that decimating a continuum of values and quantizing those values as integers seems to be a perceptual phenomenon. Sure, it's soaked in convenience and "common sense" -- so much so that any time spent thinking about it seems wasted. And, yes,the formalists may get tied up in a chicken and the egg conundrum - "Are integers a subset of rationals? How can you have rationals without integers?" - and I certainly don't have the answer. All I was doing was thinking out loud...

>>Human hubris leads us to
>>the belief that perception is reality.
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>>>Use the standard
>>>>>procedure to create first 100 naturals:
>>>>>
>>>>>{Ø}, {{Ø}}, {{{Ø}}}, ...
>>
>>Isn't it {{}}, {{},{{}}}, ...?

> 
> 
> It is if you mean 1 and 2.

Yup. And isn't that what the quoted post was describing? Received on Sat May 06 2006 - 12:39:34 CDT