----- Original Message ----- From: John Mage To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 8:49 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: The Ontology of Two Chairs (was Reich on sex &...)
John Kozak wrote:
>>> I don't know him; does he argue that 2+2=4 can be false? If so, I
>>> like to see the argument; it would be fascinating.
>> Well, in base 3, the argument wouldn't be false, it would be
>> nonsensical.
> But it isn't _in_ base three, any more than your above sentence is in
> German.
I'm not sure that this aids Joanna's point, but on a more elementary level (that is to say i was taught this in elementary school) the truth of 2+2=4 is conditioned on the assumption of the density of real numbers. Otherwise 2+2=4 is not true by definition. i.e., if 2 (as in "2 percent of the vote") stands for all values between more than 1.5 and less than 2.5, then 2+2=4 will often be false.
john mage
I remember... It was 3rd grade. We did "times tables" with our pretzels and milk.
Then we would work with set theory and number lines.
Leigh Meyers leigh_m at sbcglobal.net
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