XPost: comp.theory, sci.logic, sci.math   
   From: acm@muc.de   
      
   [ Followup-To: set ]   
      
   In comp.theory olcott  wrote:   
   > On 11/16/2025 2:49 AM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:   
   >> Tristan Wibberley   
   >>  wrote:   
   >>> On 15/11/2025 11:59, Alan Mackenzie wrote:   
      
   >>>> Very clever people have attempted to show   
   >>>> inconsistencies in the mathematical foundations, without success.  Less   
   >>>> clever people don't have a chance of doing so.   
      
   >>> That's /much/ better politics but still sorely lacking. It leaves open   
   >>> the avenue that the clever people did indeed show the inconsistencies to   
   >>> themselves and to some others but they didn't show them to /you/.   
      
   >>  That's not the way the world works.  Such results would have been   
   >> published in a mathematical journal, and immediately attracted scrutiny.   
      
   > That is not the way that the world works. A brilliant   
   > tenured PhD computer science professor could have been   
   > fired merely because he brought up the idea that the   
   > halting problem might be wrong. No one bothered to look   
   > at any of the words that he wrote. The fact that he   
   > challenged conventional wisdom was considered blasphemy.   
      
   I put it to you that this has never happened.  Tenured professors don't   
   go around asserting falsehoods in their own field.  It they do, they are   
   a danger to their students, and should be removed.  It is common   
   knowledge that Wolfgang Mückenheim, who teaches at Augsburg, asserts   
   falsehoods on sci.math.  It is generally agreed there he should be   
   dismissed.   
      
   If a geography academic were to promulgate the notion that the Earth was   
   flat, he should likewise be fired.  Those in authority that assert and   
   teach falsehoods should not have such positions.   
      
   Again we're not talking about "conventional wisdom", we're talking about   
   firmly established knowledge.  "Conventional wisdom" is much weaker than   
   established knowledge, and it is often false.   
      
   >> Something like this did happen some years ago, I can't remember the   
   >> exact details, but I think it was a "proof" that integer arithmetic was   
   >> inconsistent.  An even cleverer mathematician (I think it might have   
   >> been Terence Tao) found flaws in the proof, and the paper was withdrawn.   
      
   >>> That leaves open to the recipient of your message the possibility that   
   >>> they're merely reading a message from the wrong person. Especially in   
   >>> dead-usenet they can expect it to be true.   
      
   >>> Also, it's /literally/ a mere appeal to received doctrine which is a   
   >>> famous fallacy, one of the famous ones.   
      
   >> Not "received doctrine", but established knowledge.  You don't call it   
   >> "received doctrine" when you rely on the abilities of a car mechanic to   
   >> service your car or a doctor to service you.   
      
      
   > No one in any technical field: computer science,   
   > mathematics, and logic can tolerate challenges to   
   > the foundational assumptions of their field.   
      
   No, mathematicians can't tolerate cranks telling them that 2 + 2 = 5, or   
   an arbitrary angle can be trisected by ruler and compass, or that the   
   halting theorem is wrong.  Academics hate lies and falsehoods.   
      
   By "challenges" you mean ignorant cranks disputing established knowledge.   
      
   > Everything has been proven to work correctly within   
   > those foundational assumptions over many decades.   
      
   Indeed, yes.  One such foundational assumption is that if you drop   
   something it falls.  Some people high on LSD decided that assumption was   
   false and jumped out of windows with tragic results.   
      
   > Only Philosophers in those technical fields can   
   > have sufficient open mindedness to objectively   
   > consider alternatives to the foundational assumptions.   
      
   Wrong.  Philosophers are insufficiently competent in the technical fields   
   to be able to evaluate them effectively.  Only technical experts are able   
   to do this.  The example you sometimes cite, of the new set theory ZFC,   
   was not formulated by philosophers.   
      
   > Everyone else essentially construes this as blasphemy.   
      
   Not at all.  I suspect more "everyone else"s construe such suggestions as   
   yet more time wasting from cranks.   
      
   >> You're suggesting that mathematics is founded on something like   
   >> religion, and that one is free to reject these foundations as one is   
   >> free to reject a religion.  Peter Olcott has done this and ended up with   
   >> falsity and nonsense.   
      
      
   > It is the foundational assumptions that are taken to be   
   > the infallible word of God such that any and all challenges   
   > to these foundational assumptions are treated like blasphemy   
   > that tenured professors can get fired for.   
      
   I don't know what you mean by God, here.  As I've said already, such   
   challenges are typically from uneducated time wasting cranks.  Tenured   
   professors accept things like Pythagoras's Theorem, 2 + 2 = 4, and the   
   Halting Theorem.  They are all firmly established trivial results.   
      
   [ .... ]   
      
   >>> --   
   >>> Tristan Wibberley   
      
   > --    
   > Copyright 2025 Olcott "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius   
   > hits a target no one else can see." Arthur Schopenhauer   
      
   --    
   Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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