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felipec  unbelief  1yr ago (felipec.substack.com)   3217 thread views

2+2 = not what you think

felipec.substack.com

Changing someone's mind is very difficult, that's why I like puzzles most people get wrong: to try to open their mind. Challenging the claim that 2+2 is unequivocally 4 is one of my favorites to get people to reconsider what they think is true with 100% certainty.

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there is a difference between “you should have lingering doubt in the face of certainty that you know what exactly is trying to be communicated” and “you should have doubt about things you absolutely know are true”.

“I purposefully did not mention I was thinking about modulo math and let you assume I meant the common notion of + “ doesn’t really convince me of anything except that people disagree about what it means to be dishonest.

I don't need to be thinking about modular arithmetic to doubt 2+2=4, I could do it without having a good reason to doubt.

And I explained in the article Bertrand Russell doubted something much more fundamental 1+1=2, wrote extensively about it, and it's considered serious and important work on the foundations of mathematics.

Do you think Bertrand Russell was "dishonest" for asking people to suspend their belief?

Based on his reputation and without reading what he wrote, no I don’t think he was being dishonest. I assume he was doing some weird philosophy and never at any moment entertained the possibility that meat and potatoes real life counting was hanging in jeopardy. I don’t think he was going around and saying “you should worry about reality and trusting your lying eyes because of some fancy math that you probably don’t need and doesn’t apply to counting physical objects”

Based on his reputation and without reading what he wrote, no I don’t think he was being dishonest.

That's literally an argument from authority fallacy.

Plenty of philosophers have doubted even the most fundamental concepts of everything, including reality itself. Solipsism is a serious philosophical concept, which includes doubting that 1+1 is necessarily 2, and Bertrand Russell entertained that possibility.

It’s not a fallacy because I assume the content of his argument is not the content of your argument. I’m unable to comment on what he wrote. I have told you what I take issue with in your argument and it isn’t the part where you say Bertrand Russel said it too.

It’s not a fallacy because I assume the content of his argument is not the content of your argument.

But you are assuming his argument is valid merely on the basis of his credentials.

And you are assuming my argument is invalid merely on the basis of my credentials.

That's a fallacy.

No, this is a bizarre reading of the situation. Goodbye

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