Thank you very much. I realized I made some false statements as well.
It seems likely that reliance on (not P -> Q and not Q) -> P being a
tautology is the easiest proof of there being no largest natural number.
Brent Meeker wrote:
> Brian Tenneson wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>> How do you know that there is no biggest number? Have you examined all
>>> the natural numbers? How do you prove that there is no biggest number?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> In my opinion those are excellent questions. I will attempt to answer
>> them. The intended audience of my answer is everyone, so please forgive
>> me if I say something you already know.
>>
>> Firstly, no one has or can examine all the natural numbers. By that I
>> mean no human. Maybe there is an omniscient machine (or a "maximally
>> knowledgeable" in some paraconsistent way) who can examine all numbers
>> but that is definitely putting the cart before the horse.
>>
>> Secondly, the question boils down to a difference in philosophy:
>> mathematicians would say that it is not necessary to examine all natural
>> numbers. The mathematician would argue that it suffices to examine all
>> essential properties of natural numbers, rather than all natural numbers.
>>
>> There are a variety of equivalent ways to define a natural number but
>> the essential features of natural numbers are that
>> (a) there is an ordering on the set of natural numbers, a well
>> ordering. To say a set is well ordered entails that every =nonempty=
>> subset of it has a least element.
>> (b) the set of natural numbers has a least element (note that it is
>> customary to either say 0 is this least element or say 1 is this least
>> element--in some sense it does not matter what the starting point is)
>> (c) every natural number has a natural number successor. By successor
>> of a natural number, I mean anything for which the well ordering always
>> places the successor as larger than the predecessor.
>>
>> Then the set of natural numbers, N, is the set containing the least
>> element (0 or 1) and every successor of the least element, and only
>> successors of the least element.
>>
>> There is nothing wrong with a proof by contradiction but I think a
>> "forward" proof might just be more convincing.
>>
>> Consider the following statement:
>> Whenever S is a subset of N, S has a largest element if, and only if,
>> the complement of S has a least element.
>>
>>
>
> Let S={even numbers} the complement of S, ~S={odd numbers} ~S has a
> least element, 1. Therefore there is a largest even number.
>
> Brent
>
>
> >
>
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
