On: Self-Defeating Prophecies

[the-dude]

Have you tried to replicate the bottle experiment?

[teddyh → the-dude]

Replicate? It’s a thought experiment.

[coldtea → teddyh]

Even better, the result is based on pure math.

It doesn't need experimental replication, it's provably so.

(It doesn't even need any special proof, anymore than 10+34 = 44 needs a proof of its own. It's basic calculus).

[reacweb → coldtea]

In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica the conclusion that 1+1=2 appears only at page 379. It was a hard proof ;-)

[taejo → reacweb]

That's only true if you take a pretty arcane definition of 1 and 2, BTW. In modern axiomatizations of mathematics, as well as Peano's 19th-century axiomatization of arithmetic, the definitions of 1 and 2 are simpler, and the proofs that 1+1=2 take a couple lines.