Words, words, words, And their meanings.
posted by: pouliot
April 3, 2007
5:18 pm
Posted in another forum:
...wonderful passage where 7-year-old Alice tells pompous Humpty-Dumpty that he really cannot make words mean whatever he likes.
Hard to find a place for this response so I stretch the envelope here.
But Humpty was a mathematician; only Alice didn't grasp this.
Note
We let X denote the set of all fields having the universal set as a subset...
Or
Let X be the number of pies Jack can bake with help from Jill and Simple Simon...
See I can make them mean anything.
It's all in the axioms you see...
posted by: wljewell
April 3, 2007
7:33 pm
God loves you .
Lost me, pal . . . expand . . .
Remember, I love you, too
Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,
Pristinus Sapienter
(wljewell @catholicexchange.com or ... yahoo.com)
posted by: mkochan
April 3, 2007
9:35 pm
Yes, but — he says he is talking about verbs and nouns and such, OS.
OFF WITH HIS HEAD!
posted by: pouliot
April 4, 2007
6:14 pm
To: MKochan
No problem. Let G be the set of all verbs and let J be the set of all nouns. Now we can begin the discourse on G & J, or J & G if you would prefer.
posted by: mkochan
April 5, 2007
7:12 am
You are so funny...
I cry "uncle" — everything is math!
Now le't see your formual for the Holy Trinity, Smarty.
posted by: lpioch
April 5, 2007
11:13 am
Let "I" be The Father
Let "A" be The Son
Let "M" be the Holy Spirit
The Union of "I", "A", and "M" is also the Intersection:
"I AM"
posted by: pouliot
April 6, 2007
7:29 pm
To: LPioch
Excellent. You are the star student today. Take a bow. It also has the advantage of being the self-consistent Truth which requires no bending by Humpty.
posted by: wljewell
April 7, 2007
1:57 am
God loves you .
C'mon, pouliot -
lpioch is a scientist so her mathematical apparency may be more esoterica out of biochemistry or astrophysics. Read John chapter 14, and you'll find the Trinity is neither unionized nor intersected.
Now, I see that after inviting just such esoteric stretches, now you claim Humpty Dumpty is bent. You next will claim the Queen of Hearts was a Nostradamus-like proto-beast prefiguring Hitler.
SEE? Now I've gone and lost myself . . . :) ;)
Remember, I love you, too
Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,
Pristinus Sapienter
(wljewell @catholicexchange.com or ... yahoo.com)
posted by: lpioch
April 7, 2007
1:28 pm
Aw...C'mon PS.
You, a man of faith (higher than the sciences), should recognize that mathematics is a language only of the created. By definition, it is limited. It can only do what it is supposed to do. And it does it as best as it can.
Kinda like us humans.
But it can still offer a brief, however small, glimmer to the great infinite and unknown.
posted by: mkochan
April 9, 2007
6:38 am
Pope Benedict likes math. He said that we should ponder the fact that mathematics — a creation of the human intellect — correctly models the created world. This demonstrates that both the human mind and the universe have a single intelligent source.
posted by: pouliot
April 10, 2007
5:57 pm
To: P.S.
Perhaps I took the proposition light-heartedly or as a metaphor. I can't help but have a nagging feeling that with a careful distinction or two, the illustration wouldn't be much worse than that of St. Pat & the clover.