Ranter
Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
Comments
-
Yeah, no. . . 3/4ths of a cake is still cake.
What constitutes "cake" ? Is there a quintessential cake? The cake to end all cakes? The fundamental concept of a cake that sits at a location of causality and vibrates to create what we know as "cake" ? -
vane110663y@DarthGuappi at this moment but you can’t say it for sure, because 3/4 cake doesn’t have other purpose than eating it doesn’t mean it won’t have one so you will name it something else tomorrow
hypothetically an asteroid hits the earth and only cake picture left is 3/4 cake so people start baking cakes that looks like 3/4 cake and someone invents to add 1/4 layer to it and today’s cake would be named differently
like you name expresso with water americano or with milk latte
the world is just what you name it, what isn’t named is either forgotten or unknown, don’t forget that human knowledge is actually only partially preserved and very subjective.
History is being rewritten all the time by people who didn’t live at those times, or people who discovered some more ancient stuff from particular era -
@vane And if somebody decides to arbitrarily fill the hole into the picture of cake in your what if scenario because they have a concept of fractions, does your idea still hold?
-
it seems there were some medicinal herbs in your cake.
however, i don't see the connection between your musings and floating points? at least nothing that doesn't apply just as well to any other number format mankind ever used, be it decimals written on a napkin, roman numerals hewn in stone, or pebbles collected in a bowl. -
@vane
You're mixing several concepts... I wouldn't say that you're entirely wrong, but when putting several things in a mixer and then give the mixer a go, usually things like your text happen...
E.g. the word cake doesn't mean the same for everyone, even less true for any language. It's a word, but it's interpretation is entirely based on the understanding and knowledge of the person.
I have a small fetish for weird words or interesting words, not in the sense of etymology, rather because I find it funny and interesting how many words are out there and how they came to be.
If you eg. look up the word cake in wikipedia, you'll find out that it's history is very long and it has entirely different meanings.
Cake derived from bread. And bread has a history. And bread is again something that has an entirely different meaning in several languages.
What's infinite is definitely the number of possible combinations and variations of cake in history - we just simplified it to cake to have a single word for it.
Null and infinity - and in general math and science - is the introduction of concepts we cannot grasp without abstraction.
We "define" infinity and null to give a concept and structure to sth. that we cannot comprehend.
And again, it's interpretation is entirely dependent on the context.
What you want is a general and universal understanding of words without any subjective interpretation - as only then you could have a unique and single definition of "infinity" and "null" - which is impossible I guess.
To get biblical - the curse of Babel from the book genesis. ;) -
vane110663y@tosensei @IntrusionCM so is there half of star somewhere in universe or half of pig living with half of heart ?
fraction numbers (floating point numbers) are just oversimplification of universe that we don’t understand
we use zero(null) and infinite cause we don’t understand how the world works not because we understand what those values mean, can you do nothing ? or is there unlimited energy ?
if someone doesn’t understand something he tend to complicate stuff to get into solution by trying different crazy things I think floating point numbers, infinity and zero are crazy ideas that someone originally invented cause of something else than we think it’s purpose is
there are multiple books criticizing zero and infinite, multiple paradoxes and I say that floating point numbers are also one of the problems we’re facing -
@vane `fraction numbers (floating point numbers) are just oversimplification of universe that we don’t understand`
you are technically correct, but what you're saying is pointless - because:
* ALL numbers are an oversimplification of the real world.
* all of LANGUAGE is an oversimplification of the real world.
* every single THOUGHT that ever has been thought is an oversimplification. a symbolic abstraction intended for efficient, close-enough modelling of the real world.
the "real world" is just... stuff happening. or maybe not happening. or maybe not stuff.
so again: i don't see what your musings have to do with floating point numbers _specifically_ - since they apply, just as well, to everything else.
Related Rants
floating point numbers are workarounds for infinite problems people didn’t find solution yet
if you eat a cake there is no cake, same if you grab a piece of cake, there is no 3/4 cake left there is something else yet to simplify the meaning of the world so we can communicate cause we’re all dumb fucks who can’t remember more than 20000 words we named different things as same things but in less amount, floating point numbers were a biggest step towards modern world we even don’t remember it
we use infinity everyday yet we don’t know infinite, we only partially know concept of null
you say piece of cake but piece is not measurement - piece is infinite subjective amount of something
everything that is subjective is infinite, like you say a sentence it have infinite number of meanings, you publish a photo or draw a paining there are infinite number of interpretations
you can say there is no cake but isn’t it ? you just said cake so your mind want to materialize something you already know and since you know the cake word there is a cake cause it’s infinite once created
if you think really hard and try to get that feeling, the taste of your last delicious cake you can almost feel it on your tongue cause you’re connected to every cake taste you ate
someone created cake and once people know what cake is it’s infinite in that collection, but what if no one created cake or everyone that remember how cake looks like died, everything what’s cake made of extinct ? does it exist or is it null ? that’s determinism and entropy problem we don’t understand, we don’t understand past and future cause we don’t understand infinity and null, we just replaced it with time
there is no time and you can have a couple of minutes break are best explanations of how null and infinite works in a concept of time
so if you want to change the world, find another thing that explains infinity and null and you will push our civilization forward, you don’t need to know any physics or math, you just need to observe the world and spot patterns
rant
cake
infinity
time
null
philosophy
math