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felipec  unbelief  1yr ago (felipec.substack.com)   3218 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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It seems like you don't, actually, understand what that comparative aside was doing, so let me restate it at more length, in different words, with the reasoning behind the various parts made more explicit.

I described a situation where a person generated object A by means of process B, but due to their circumstances the important part of their activity was process B, and object A was important mostly insofar as it allowed the engagement of process B. Since I judged this sort of process-driven dynamic may seem counterintuitive, I also decided to give an example that is clearly caused by similar considerations. Writing Hello World in a new language is a nearly prototypical instance of trivial output being used to verify that a process is being applied successfully. The choice of assembly further increased the relevance of "moderately experienced programmer checking that their build pipeline works and their understanding of fundamentals is correct".

In this context, the existence of the general case - and the fact that it is the typical example brought to mind by the description, as indicated by the name you selected - suffices to serve the purpose of the aside. I did not claim and did not need to claim anything about all instances of building Hello World in assembly; the idea that I was trying to is an assumption that you made.

I did not claim and did not need to claim anything about all instances of building Hello World in assembly; the idea that I was trying to is an assumption that you made.

This is obviously not the case because this was not an aside, but an analogy to another point that you were making. You were clearly saying that a) "coding Hello World in assembly" is never b) "coding Hello World in assembly", and always c) "coding Hello World in assembly", and there was no other possible way to interpret that.

You used that to substantiate your claim that Bertrand Russell didn't actually want to prove 1+1=2, but wanted to do something else using the proof 1+1=2 as a tool.

But in both cases you made assumptions: what you claimed is not necessarily true.

My assessment of you has shifted far enough towards "troll" that I won't bother replying to you again.

Then don't reply, rather taking a parting shot.

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