When you perceive all circles to be round, you are under a very strong illusion.
The shape of O is simply meaningless by itself. We've managed to create 'a necessarily round circle' by way of make-believe and it's now quite difficult to shake off.
That's because we've linked the spacio-temporal shape of an object to it's representation, creating an invisible closed loop. It's a VIRUS of the mind.
Linking spacio-temporal shapes to their representations creates vicious invisible loops and is bad for your mind!!! Those kinds of things make us delusional.
This goes for all 'necessary associations' like triangles and other things..
They're very devious illusions. All of them.
Another one I can think of is the one that the numbers are ordered from -inf to +inf.
The numbers have no 'weight', except maybe for 1 being the prime number and source of all relations.
It would be logical to assume that in mathematics all is one and infinite and in some very real way 1 = infinity and then structure the infinitely many relations around it.
When we imagine 2 bigger than 1, we are making a remarkably stupid mistake. REMARKABLY. But I'll let you figure it out yourself.

Oh well, I'll just hint that 2 = 1/2

Oh, and I should say - I have no ****ing clue what 2 + 2 equals. Cheers to you all!

That's all.

So THAT'S what's wrong w/ me!

Don't worry, Rhaegar, it's all going to change this century. Circles, triangles and other things will all be re-defined so that what is on your screen will actually be these objects, and not mere representations of them.

Cliff's: Thinking is bad for your brain.

My kid asked me yesterday if I knew that numbers go on forever. I said yes and explained we have an infinity symbol that represents that.

You're all wrong, but at least not all of you are pointing fingers at the idiot, trying to tell you that 2+2 isn't 4.

I'm making a really important point here; it is no trick, I've been doing mathematics since I was 4 or 5 (it often seems that this is all I've been doing in the last 25 years) and am very very serious about this..

Perhaps someone will get it..


We can't as of yet prove that the numbers themselves are infinite - at least if we distinguish any primes (other than 1, which is THE prime) ; that is because it might be that from a finite amount of numbers and relations, we can derive all the others. In which case - there are some prime numbers, and the rest are variations. The alternative is that the numbers are unbound, so that they cause each other's existence in a circular way. But we have no means to distinguish between the two. (Well, I am personally convinced in the second case.) Notice that the current definition of 'prime number' is basically village idiot quality. It's an insult to mathematics. Somehow in this mathematics multiplication is better than division, although it's super obvious that 1/2 = 2/1 as much as 1/1 = 1/1 - another failure of the habit to misplace relation with its representation. It LOOKS like the 2 is ON TOP (a trick of light really), so it must be BIGGER. NUMBERS ARE RELATIONS. NOTHING MORE.

The cool thing is that you are correct, even though I assume you are trolling. The mind can expand to picture those entities correctly. And it will. It just needs.. a little push.


What I'm seriously telling you is that most of the math and physics taught even in undergrad and graduate is wrong. It's just that most of the people involved are not up to the task. They can't shake of the viral representations..


If you knew what paradoxes lied hidden in Math, you'd be intrigued and delighted!

And btw 2+2 isn't 4. There isn't any way to derive addition. We take addition from experiment, not from understanding, and quantity is also - not a property of numbers. The number 48 is one number. The number -5 is one number. They have no different weight. They are just abstract relations. They can make your values go up or down, depending on how you insert them. There is no objective difference between up and down. It's basically a trick of light.

Imagination validates numbers just as much as experiencing relationships does.

I dont think you are an idiot, Rhaegar.

Here is a song one the matter...

Imagination makes a mistake by assigning aeshetic qualities of perception to the relations itself, which are actually not present in it. You're always convinced that 'up' is 'up' and 'down' is 'down' for example.

That's a GRAND illusion. It's hilariously funny when you realize how it is in reality.

One can use imagination to realize up and down are relative in a most meaningful way. Imagination's co-worker, determination, needs to know which way is up in order to proceed that way. So the grand illusion you speak of is actually purposeful. That means it may not be entirely an illusion, simply an available perception which is not obvious.

Well, it's not random. I don't believe in randomness. But it's certainly not part of the number that we're trying to understand.

But.. take 2 and 1/2. Almost all but professional mathematicians seem to order numbers from -inf to +inf. So they think 2 > 1/2. But there's no basis for it. 1/2 and 2/1 are the same thing. Just two ways to write the same number. You could write it in 2000 ways, it would still be one number.

Btw, very few people can see the abstract reality of perspective. It's harder than to squint your eyes real hard. You have to squint your mind..

Math isn't real. It's an abstract concept tool that helps us make sense of reality.

Nope. Reality = Mathematics It's the same thing.

The number 1 is not a prime number. You should know that.

Prime Number

From above link:

The number 1 is a special case which is considered neither prime nor composite (Wells 1986, p. 31). Although the number 1 used to be considered a prime (Goldbach 1742; Lehmer 1909, 1914; Hardy and Wright 1979, p. 11; Gardner 1984, pp. 86-87; Sloane and Plouffe 1995, p. 33; Hardy 1999, p. 46), it requires special treatment in so many definitions and applications involving primes greater than or equal to 2 that it is usually placed into a class of its own.

A good reason not to call 1 a prime number is that if 1 were prime, then the statement of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic would have to be modified since "in exactly one way" would be false because any n=n·1. In other words, unique factorization into a product of primes would fail if the primes included 1. A slightly less illuminating but mathematically correct reason is noted by Tietze (1965, p. 2), who states "Why is the number 1 made an exception? This is a problem that schoolboys often argue about, but since it is a question of definition, it is not arguable." As more simply noted by Derbyshire (2004, p. 33), "2 pays its way [as a prime] on balance; 1 doesn't."

********************

Find some different cloud to yell at.

Nope, they are not the same.

There exist grains of sand, but the label we count them by is an abstract. It could be anything. The number doesn't exist. The grains of sand do, but how many is arbitrary.

BTW. No 'one' grain of sand = another 'one' or anything that exists in reality equals anything else. So the accuracy of math formulas is also a rough estimate at best. See quantum mechanics.

Is it bad that I understand what you're saying, OP? Do I need to take my meds?

I think it matters less than you think. You (as in, you) are already somewhat aware of the associations and escaping them. People more intelligent than either of us probably escape them better.

The mental images are like scaffolding. They're needed when learning, but when sufficient work is done, you can use the building itself. The scaffolding stays up, but it doesn't interfere when people are sufficiently familiar with the subject matter. I see numbers on a tortuous physical scale, but that scaffolding doesn't stop me grasping number theory.

It's going to be exciting when we finally map the brain in detail and begin to understand at what level of intelligence we're able to escape each level of mental scaffolding/confusion of model with reality. I would guess it's around 110 to be able to realize that a circle in your head is not a circle. Perhaps 90 or so to realize that your conception of God is not God (although even intelligent people get stuck on this one).

Zeno, I suspect he meant prime in the other sense of the word.

Probably; I took the literal mathematical definition (he should have used a different term to make clear the distinction) and ran with it - because his posts are somewhat confusing and entangled, like a thorn patch. Easy way out. Anyway, was useful in the sense that 'facts' were elucidated to the masses.

Time for another Brew. A nice IPA I think.