🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@LouisIngenthron

> In none of those examples are you doing integer addition.
The first two examples are collision, not addition. The third is procreation, not addition.

I never said addition was collision. Addition is "the combination of two things into one".. 2 is not one and one seperately, it is only when you take one and **combine** it with another 1 that it becomes 2.

The nature of how you "Combine" then is again open to definition. You can put them in the same basket or within some bounded space.

In the case of antimatter I picked electrons because they are point-like when manifest, so two electrons can **never** collide. It is only when they are near proximity (within the same energy level and region) that they combine and annihilate.

But again its all definitions. But it is important to note that addition is the combining of things, and is **not** the same as counting, which is an ordered set you are iterating through.

As for integers, again just a play on definitions. If i am adding ducks, is a conjoined twin duck two ducks or one? What if it has two heads vs 4 legs and one head? Or do we count the atoms that make up a duck. Why is a glass of water some real number thing (the volume) and not a single integer "one blob of water".. afterall ducks can be of various sizes and configuration and made up of constituent parts, so why cant we treat water the same?

Again the point here is all of this is you relying on arbitrary definitions to make any of this work. There is no "reality" to it and is very much a debatable "fact".

But again if the fact that "1+1=2" is true or not isnt relevant. Because even if it is a concept thatis absolutely and objectively true, since we can (and are) disagreeing on that it is only your **opinion** that it is fact, it is my opinion it is not fact. One of us might be true but there is no way to prove which of us is true in an infallable way, ergo regardless of its underlying truth it is still an opinion that it is true.

@LouisIngenthron Oh to answer your last question...

> such definitions describe concepts that would seem to be universally constant, that are independently and repeatably verifiable regardless of perspective. If we don't call those "facts", what do we call them?

Such a thing doesnt exist. Perspective will change what is true. A person tripping on acid or said to be hallucinating from their perspective they will see a very different reality and from their perspection they think their "facts" are objectively and repeatably true and you look like the crazy person (usually).

So you are really asking "What if something I and most people I talk to all agree we get the same results almost every time we do the experiment"... we would call that "An opinion of fact that we have high confidence in"... for the sake of linguistic simplicity we simply call that a "fact" but we must be aware that what we are always saying when we say fact is just an opinion you hold in high confidence.

@LouisIngenthron

> I feel like you're unnecessarily equating labels with their underlying concepts here.

> The concept of two is still two whether we write it as "2" in base-10 or as "10" in base-2.

No this is exactly what i said at the offset, there are two ways to discuss this, both very different but both agree with what I'm saying here.

What i just expressed was the "by mathemical definition" where I showed "1+1=2" is **not** a universal truth, it is only true when defined to be true, and not in any sense in reality.

> Likewise, the concept of integer addition is distinct from the addition symbol "+" which is also used to denote many similar-yet-distinct concepts (such as the ones you describe). While those may be referred to as "addition", they aren't the concept of integer addition that I'm specifically referring to.

So lets use the other half of the coin, since that is what you are asserting here you mean. Not by definition but due toi the real world concepts they represent.

> These are, as you initially described them, effectively "definitions" that prove themselves circularly, but a tiny subset of such definitions describe concepts that would seem to be universally constant, that are independently and repeatably verifiable regardless of perspective. If we don't call those "facts", what do we call them?

So even in the real world, not by definition, the real world concept that "1+1=2" is not a universal fact in reality either.

I mean sure, if I have one duck, and add to that one apple, I now have two things... but again that is only because we define what a duck is, and where one thing ends and another starts, its still all by linguistic definition, and ONLY works for some things even if we accept their definittions...

Here are all the counter examples where "1+1 does not equal 0":

One electron added to one positron results in 0 physical things. So in this scenario "1+1=0"

one blob of water added to another blob of water results in a single blob of water, therefore "1+1=1"

If you put two humans who are attractive to eachother in a room and wait 9 months you get an extra human. Therefore in some cases "1+1=3"

@customdesigned

> This is the Platonist vs Nominalist controversy. Do categories like "horse" exist in reality? Or are there only individual organisms we arbitrarily categorize as "horse"/"equine"?

I can see why you might confuse these two arguments but they are in fact subtly and importantly different.

I am **not** arguing that objective truths dont exist in reality (or that they do for that matter) at all. Only that if they exist you can never be 100% certain of something being an objective truth, therefore even if we accept objective truths as existing, anyone trying to state something is an objective truth is still stating an opinion that it is one of the objective truths that exist, and they could still be wrong about this. So regardless of if objective truths exist or not every utterance is always an opinion.

@customdesigned

Actually if the act of stealing money became common place, then it would devalue the money as an asset and not reduce inflation at all. No one would want money if it was easily stolen as opposed to some other asset that is harder to steal.

@LouisIngenthron Also it bears mentioning that as much as you may believe 1+1=2 is a universally and objectivelly true fact it is not. It is only true under an explicit definition of that being so, and depends on every definition therewithin.

For example 1+1 does nto equal two in the following systems:

in base 2 systems there is no symbol such as 2 so "1+1=2" is patently false. however "1+1=10" is true under that system. This is because our definition of the numbers and how they expressed is different.

In braurer groups addition is defined as a tensor product over algebras. Without getting too technical under this mathematical ring "1+1 does not equal 2" in fact this very assertion is non nonsensical.

In noncommunicative addition rings then "1+2 is not equal to 2+1" and in many such rings 1+1 equals something other than 2 as a consequence (in some such rings it does).

Similarly in mathemetical rings the very set of numbers that exist may be finite, and the number 2 may not exist at all. In fact you can have mathematical rings where 0 and 1 are your only numbers, and as such "1+1=2" is not true.

@robryk Please do, ill keep this on my radar for now and do a deeper dive if i can confirm any occurrence that doesn't line up with my theory.

Since our problems were revolving around the worker queues and caused a lot of retried tasks at the time my theory seems reasonable at least.

@robryk and earlier polls where the same thing happened all appear within the time period where we were still fixing stuff. So all that could be explained by the now resolved problem.

That said if you see this happen on any polls that occured on march 3rd or after (in terms of when you voted or posted the poll) then that means there is a persisting issue and I'd like to know.

I have a few pending polls int he pipeline that should give me some answers int he next 24 hours as well.

@robryk The last known issue (though the system was usable) was on march 2nd and resolved around 1500 (EST I think, maybe UTC). So there would have been some overlap there.

@LouisIngenthron Oh and to your other point...

> I don't need confirmation from an omniscient oracle to confirm a fact as true. I just need to be reasonably certain that....

That isnt a coinfirmation. If you are reasonably certain, then you are reasonably certain, that is not a confirmation of truth, it is just a measure of doubt that is reasonable for you to adopt the **opinion** that it is an absolute truth. Someone else who has a higher standard of evidence may set a higher threshold... but since as you point out, in no way confirmed it to be true in an absolute sense (only reasonably certain) it still remains an opinion.

we as humans just assume a certain level of confidence is the same as something being objectively and absolutely true as if its somehow special. Its only a matter of degree in confidence of your opinion, nothing more. It remains an opinion.

@robryk Someone else just commented this to me as well, on the same post infact. Here was my response:

The poll you quote here shows as muted to me. Can you link me directly to it so I can look. ITs possible its an artifact of the migration. The way the system works is it schedules at the moment you vote on a poll a task for the future that sits int he queue. If when things were broken you voted it may have created multiple scheduled tasks that even though things got fixed all went through now.

So this may not indicate things are still broken at all... but depends on timing, do you remember how long ago exactly you voted on it? Is it possible you voted on it back when things were still broken?

@LouisIngenthron

> Idk about that. If you met someone from 100 years ago, you'd sure seem like an oracle to them.

So if someone a 100 years ago thought of a random number and asked this seeming oracle to tell them what number they are thinking of, would they be right 100% of the time? No. Therefore even to a critical thinker 100 years ago it would be trivial to prove you are not an oracle (a person who can determine what is fact without any chance of being wrong or not knowing).

> As a species, we seek to define and understand the world around us, and the only way we can truly do that is by finding these universal truths and using them as lenses. I don't think we've found many yet, but we're working hard on finding more.

Nothing wrong with trying to refine your opinion and your certainty of it based ont he evidence and your own logic. Also nothing wrong with communally sharing that so we all have a collection of opinions that are educated and well thought out.

But no matter how much you explore objective truth you can never state a thing to be absolute truth beyond it being your **opinion** that it is an absolute truth. Sure it may or may not be actually an objective truth, but with no oracle capable of determining that it will always be your opinion. The only thing that changes with evidence (and should) is the confidence you have int hat opinion. It will never stop being an opinion.

@obeto@mas.to

Yea, sadly racism is everyone and there are still people who will see a bunch of minorities and assume their life is in danger, it is sad and this sort of shit (racism and prejudice) needs to die.

I do think its getting better but very sad it still lingers in society :(

@thepoliticalcat

GTFO of here with that racist shit. As a minority myself implying anyone is good or evil based on the color of their skin is deplorable to say the least.

Now I have no issue of course pointing out the statistics and exploring why systemic (and non-systemic) racism against various races might contribute to an imbalance based on race. But to imply a race is responsible for that is just, disgusting racist shit we dont need here...

@obeto@mas.to