80 ideas
9123 | Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen] |
8721 | An 'impredicative' definition seems circular, because it uses the term being defined [Friend] |
8680 | Classical definitions attempt to refer, but intuitionist/constructivist definitions actually create objects [Friend] |
3678 | Reductio ad absurdum proves an idea by showing that its denial produces contradiction [Friend] |
8705 | Anti-realists see truth as our servant, and epistemically contrained [Friend] |
8713 | In classical/realist logic the connectives are defined by truth-tables [Friend] |
8708 | Double negation elimination is not valid in intuitionist logic [Friend] |
8720 | A logic is 'relevant' if premise and conclusion are connected, and 'paraconsistent' allows contradictions [Priest,G, by Friend] |
9672 | Free logic is one of the few first-order non-classical logics [Priest,G] |
8694 | Free logic was developed for fictional or non-existent objects [Friend] |
9697 | X1 x X2 x X3... x Xn indicates the 'cartesian product' of those sets [Priest,G] |
9685 | <a,b&62; is a set whose members occur in the order shown [Priest,G] |
9675 | a ∈ X says a is an object in set X; a ∉ X says a is not in X [Priest,G] |
9674 | {x; A(x)} is a set of objects satisfying the condition A(x) [Priest,G] |
9673 | {a1, a2, ...an} indicates that a set comprising just those objects [Priest,G] |
9677 | Φ indicates the empty set, which has no members [Priest,G] |
9676 | {a} is the 'singleton' set of a (not the object a itself) [Priest,G] |
9679 | X⊂Y means set X is a 'proper subset' of set Y [Priest,G] |
9678 | X⊆Y means set X is a 'subset' of set Y [Priest,G] |
9681 | X = Y means the set X equals the set Y [Priest,G] |
9683 | X ∩ Y indicates the 'intersection' of sets X and Y, the objects which are in both sets [Priest,G] |
9682 | X∪Y indicates the 'union' of all the things in sets X and Y [Priest,G] |
9684 | Y - X is the 'relative complement' of X with respect to Y; the things in Y that are not in X [Priest,G] |
9694 | The 'relative complement' is things in the second set not in the first [Priest,G] |
9693 | The 'intersection' of two sets is a set of the things that are in both sets [Priest,G] |
9692 | The 'union' of two sets is a set containing all the things in either of the sets [Priest,G] |
9698 | The 'induction clause' says complex formulas retain the properties of their basic formulas [Priest,G] |
8665 | A 'proper subset' of A contains only members of A, but not all of them [Friend] |
8672 | A 'powerset' is all the subsets of a set [Friend] |
9695 | An 'ordered pair' (or ordered n-tuple) is a set with its members in a particular order [Priest,G] |
9696 | A 'cartesian product' of sets is the set of all the n-tuples with one member in each of the sets [Priest,G] |
9686 | A 'set' is a collection of objects [Priest,G] |
9689 | The 'empty set' or 'null set' has no members [Priest,G] |
9690 | A set is a 'subset' of another set if all of its members are in that set [Priest,G] |
9691 | A 'proper subset' is smaller than the containing set [Priest,G] |
9688 | A 'singleton' is a set with only one member [Priest,G] |
9687 | A 'member' of a set is one of the objects in the set [Priest,G] |
9680 | The empty set Φ is a subset of every set (including itself) [Priest,G] |
8677 | Set theory makes a minimum ontological claim, that the empty set exists [Friend] |
8666 | Infinite sets correspond one-to-one with a subset [Friend] |
8682 | Major set theories differ in their axioms, and also over the additional axioms of choice and infinity [Friend] |
8709 | The law of excluded middle is syntactic; it just says A or not-A, not whether they are true or false [Friend] |
8711 | Intuitionists read the universal quantifier as "we have a procedure for checking every..." [Friend] |
13373 | Typically, paradoxes are dealt with by dividing them into two groups, but the division is wrong [Priest,G] |
13368 | The 'least indefinable ordinal' is defined by that very phrase [Priest,G] |
13370 | 'x is a natural number definable in less than 19 words' leads to contradiction [Priest,G] |
13369 | By diagonalization we can define a real number that isn't in the definable set of reals [Priest,G] |
8675 | Paradoxes can be solved by talking more loosely of 'classes' instead of 'sets' [Friend] |
13366 | The least ordinal greater than the set of all ordinals is both one of them and not one of them [Priest,G] |
8674 | The Burali-Forti paradox asks whether the set of all ordinals is itself an ordinal [Friend] |
13367 | The next set up in the hierarchy of sets seems to be both a member and not a member of it [Priest,G] |
13371 | If you know that a sentence is not one of the known sentences, you know its truth [Priest,G] |
13372 | There are Liar Pairs, and Liar Chains, which fit the same pattern as the basic Liar [Priest,G] |
8667 | The 'integers' are the positive and negative natural numbers, plus zero [Friend] |
8668 | The 'rational' numbers are those representable as fractions [Friend] |
8670 | A number is 'irrational' if it cannot be represented as a fraction [Friend] |
8661 | The natural numbers are primitive, and the ordinals are up one level of abstraction [Friend] |
8664 | Cardinal numbers answer 'how many?', with the order being irrelevant [Friend] |
8671 | The 'real' numbers (rationals and irrationals combined) is the Continuum, which has no gaps [Friend] |
8663 | Raising omega to successive powers of omega reveal an infinity of infinities [Friend] |
8662 | The first limit ordinal is omega (greater, but without predecessor), and the second is twice-omega [Friend] |
8669 | Between any two rational numbers there is an infinite number of rational numbers [Friend] |
8676 | Is mathematics based on sets, types, categories, models or topology? [Friend] |
8678 | Most mathematical theories can be translated into the language of set theory [Friend] |
8701 | The number 8 in isolation from the other numbers is of no interest [Friend] |
8702 | In structuralism the number 8 is not quite the same in different structures, only equivalent [Friend] |
8699 | Are structures 'ante rem' (before reality), or are they 'in re' (grounded in physics)? [Friend] |
8696 | Structuralist says maths concerns concepts about base objects, not base objects themselves [Friend] |
8695 | Structuralism focuses on relations, predicates and functions, with objects being inessential [Friend] |
8700 | 'In re' structuralism says that the process of abstraction is pattern-spotting [Friend] |
8681 | The big problem for platonists is epistemic: how do we perceive, intuit, know or detect mathematical facts? [Friend] |
8712 | Mathematics should be treated as true whenever it is indispensable to our best physical theory [Friend] |
8716 | Formalism is unconstrained, so cannot indicate importance, or directions for research [Friend] |
8706 | Constructivism rejects too much mathematics [Friend] |
8707 | Intuitionists typically retain bivalence but reject the law of excluded middle [Friend] |
8704 | Structuralists call a mathematical 'object' simply a 'place in a structure' [Friend] |
594 | Speusippus suggested underlying principles for every substance, and ended with a huge list [Speussipus, by Aristotle] |
8685 | Studying biology presumes the laws of chemistry, and it could never contradict them [Friend] |
8688 | Concepts can be presented extensionally (as objects) or intensionally (as a characterization) [Friend] |
2632 | Speusippus said things were governed by some animal force rather than the gods [Speussipus, by Cicero] |