Beauty and Evolution
Interesting.
Seems to me that people tend to ignore the possibility that evolution acts in rather general ways, and that it might equip creatures to have an appreciation for beauty that's rather more general...rather than just an arbitrary preference for some specific visual stimulus. This is the kind of thing that seems to happen with intelligence. Evolution equips us with intelligence, and then we go nuts with it. It doesn't equip us to find the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem fascinating...it equips us with intelligence generally, and then lots of stuff follows from that for our behavior.
Seems to me that people tend to ignore the possibility that evolution acts in rather general ways, and that it might equip creatures to have an appreciation for beauty that's rather more general...rather than just an arbitrary preference for some specific visual stimulus. This is the kind of thing that seems to happen with intelligence. Evolution equips us with intelligence, and then we go nuts with it. It doesn't equip us to find the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem fascinating...it equips us with intelligence generally, and then lots of stuff follows from that for our behavior.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:11 AM
1 Comments:
The axiom of choice is teh dum.
Lowenheim-Skolem is just another consequence of trying to treat the concept of infinity in a finite fashion.
I have money on: in the future, the axiom of choice will be dismissed as an obvious silliness that led to all sorts of confusions (despite the availability of obvious reductio-ad-absurdums on its ass, such as Banach–Tarski).
Infinity is not a number. You cannot index an infinite array. You cannot select an element from an infinite array. You cannot perform finite actions against infinite sets, period. Zeno's paradox, bitch. Build me a database that does it or shut up.
The axiom of choice is basically: "...nuh uh. Watch me pretend I can! Ooooo look at all the FASCINATING results!!! WOW! YOU CAN MAKE JUNK OUTTA NOTHIN'! CRAAAAAAAAAZY!! OOO LOOK, THIS INFINITY IS MORE...UH...INFINITIER...THAN THAT INFINITY!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!"
Yes. Crazy, indeed.
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