So, numbers that can't be expressed don't "exist",
Putative symbol-lists (whether you want to think of them as numbers or otherwise) that cannot in principle be expressed, are not expressed anywhere. In that sense they clearly do not exist.
A movie on my hard disk takes up about 1 GB, i.e. it's an 8,000,000,000 digit long binary number. Do all such numbers "exist"? I submit that the only ones that exist, are those that actually have physical representations somewhere; to say otherwise is to say that a movie exists before filming has started on it, which IMO is ridiculous.
I think you think you're doing something terribly important and clever
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 12:21 am (UTC)Putative symbol-lists (whether you want to think of them as numbers or otherwise) that cannot in principle be expressed, are not expressed anywhere. In that sense they clearly do not exist.
A movie on my hard disk takes up about 1 GB, i.e. it's an 8,000,000,000 digit long binary number. Do all such numbers "exist"? I submit that the only ones that exist, are those that actually have physical representations somewhere; to say otherwise is to say that a movie exists before filming has started on it, which IMO is ridiculous.
I think you think you're doing something terribly important and clever
No, I think it's bloody obvious.