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A comment on How real are real numbers? (2004). Parent comment

Re:How real are real numbers? (2004) by FabHK on Monday April 10, 2017 @02:50PM (#14081410)
There are more people on earth than, say, kings. That's true, even though I can't enumerate all non-kings, and even if the set of non-kings is somehow ill-defined.
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Re:How real are real numbers? (2004) by upquark on Monday April 10, 2017 @02:53PM (#14081437)
Still not sure I follow. Set of non-kings is not ill-defined, not in the same way as set of numbers non-describable by any formal system is.
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Re:How real are real numbers? (2004) by mcherm on Monday April 10, 2017 @03:56PM (#14082000)
> Set of non-kings is not ill-defined, not in the same way as set of numbers non-describable by any formal system is.

Um... roughly the same. Is Robert Mugabe a king? Since we didn't give a clear and precise definition of "king" you can't really say.

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Re:How real are real numbers? (2004) by upquark on Monday April 10, 2017 @04:24PM (#14082198)
No, my "ill-defined" means "will lead to contradictions if you look too closely", not "I haven't exactly specified what it means".
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