Re: The seven step series

From: ronaldheld <RonaldHeld.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:07:10 -0700 (PDT)

Bruno:
   I am following, but have not commented, because there is nothing
controversal.
   When you are done, can your posts be consolidated into a paper or a
document that can be read staright through?
                                                         Ronald

On Jul 23, 9:28 am, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> On 23 Jul 2009, at 15:09, m.a. wrote:
>
> > Bruno,
> >             Yes, yours and Brent's explanations seem very clear. I  
> > hate to ask you to spell things out step by step all the way, but I  
> > can tell you that when I'm confronted by a dense hedge or clump of  
> > math symbols, my mind refuses to even try to disentangle them and  
> > reels back in terror. So I beg you to always advance in baby steps  
> > with lots of space between statements. I want to assure you that I'm  
> > printing out all of your 7-step lessons and using them for study and  
> > reference. Thanks for your patience,   m.a.
>
> Don't worry, I understand that very well. And this illustrates also  
> that your "despair" is more psychological than anything else. I have  
> also abandoned the study of a mathematical book until I realize that  
> the difficulty was more my bad eyesight than any conceptual  
> difficulties. With good spectacles I realize the subject was not too  
> difficult, but agglomeration of little symbols can give a bad  
> impression, even for a mathematician.
>
> I will make some effort, tell me if my last post, on the relation
>
>       (a^n) * (a^m) = a^(n + m)
>
> did help you.
>
> You are lucky to have an infinitely patient teacher. You can ask any  
> question, like "Bruno,
>
> is (a^n) * (a^m) the same as a^n times a^m?"
>   Answer: yes, I use often "*", "x", as shorthand for "times", and I  
> use "(" and ")" as delimiters in case I fear some ambiguity.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > -- Original Message -----
> > From: Bruno Marchal
> > To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:20 PM
> > Subject: Re: The seven step series
>
> > Marty,
>
> > Brent wrote:
>
> > On 21 Jul 2009, at 23:24, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> >> Take all strings of length 2
> >> 00             01                   10               11
> >> Make two copies of each
> >> 00      00      01      01      10      10      11      11
> >> Add a 00 to the first and a 01 to the second
> >> 000    001      010   011      100   101   110      111
> >> and you have all strings of length 3.
>
> > Then you wrote
>
> >> I can see where adding 0 to the first and 1 to the second gives 000  
> >> and 001 and I think I see how you get 010 but the rest of the  
> >> permutations don't seem obvious to me. P-l-e-a-s-e  explain,  Best,
>
> >>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 m
> >> . (mathematically hopeless)  a.
>
> > Let me rewrite Brent's explanation, with a tiny tiny tiny improvement:
>
> > Take all strings of length 2
> > 00
> > 01
> > 10
> > 11
> > Make two copies of each
>
> > first copy:
> > 00
> > 01
> > 10
> > 11
>
> > second copy
> > 00
> > 01
> > 10
> > 11
>
> > add a 0 to the end of the strings in the first copy, and then add a  
> > 1  to the end of the strings in the second copy:
>
> > first copy:
> > 000
> > 010
> > 100
> > 110
>
> > second copy
> > 001
> > 011
> > 101
> > 111
>
> > You get all 08 elements of B_3.
>
> > You can do the same reasoning with the subsets. Adding an element to  
> > a set multiplies by 02 the number of elements of the powerset:
>
> > Exemple. take a set with two elements {a, b}. Its powerset is {{ }  
> > {a} {b} {a, b}}. How to get all the subset of {a, b, c} that is the  
> > set coming from adding c to {a, b}.
>
> > Write two copies of the powerset of {a, b}
>
> > { }
> > {a}
> > {b}
> > {a, b}
>
> > { }
> > {a}
> > {b}
> > {a, b}
>
> > Don't add c to the set in the first copy, and add c to the sets in  
> > the second copies. This gives
>
> > { }
> > {a}
> > {b}
> > {a, b}
>
> > {c}
> > {a, c}
> > {b, c}
> > {a, b, c}
>
> > and that gives all subsets of {a, b, c}.
>
> > This is coherent with interpreting a subset {a, b} of a set {a, b,  
> > c}, by a string like 110, which can be conceived as a shortand for
>
> > Is a in the subset?   YES, thus 1
> > Is b in the subset?   YES thus  1
> > Is c in the subset?    NO thus   0.
>
> > OK?
>
> > You say also:
>
> >> The example of Mister X only confuses me more.
>
> > Once you understand well the present post, I suggest you reread the  
> > Mister X examples, because it is a key in the UDA reasoning. If you  
> > still have problem with it, I suggest you quote it, line by line,  
> > and ask question. I will answer (or perhaps someone else).
>
> > Don't be afraid to ask any question. You are not mathematically  
> > hopeless. You are just not familiarized with reasoning in math. It  
> > is normal to go slowly. As far as you can say "I don't understand",  
> > there is hope you will understand.
>
> > Indeed, concerning the UDA I suspect many in the list cannot say "I  
> > don't understand", they believe it is philosophy, so they feel like  
> > they could object on philosophical ground, when the whole point is  
> > to present a deductive argument in a theory. So it is false, or you  
> > have to accept the theorem in the theory. It is a bit complex,  
> > because it is an "applied theory". The mystery are in the axioms of  
> > the theory, as always.
>
> > So please ask *any* question. I ask this to everyone. I am intrigued  
> > by the difficulty some people can have with such reasoning (I mean  
> > the whole UDA here). (I can understand the shock when you get the  
> > point, but that is always the case with new results: I completely  
> > share Tegmark's idea that our brain have not been prepared to  
> > have    any intuition when our mind try to figure out what is behind  
> > our local neighborhood).
>
> > Bruno
>
> >http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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Received on Mon Jul 27 2009 - 07:07:10 PDT

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