Quote:
Originally posted by Jaradu:
quote:
Originally posted by Stratos:
I think, therefore I am.
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I never quite understood what people meant when they said that... what does it mean? [/QUOTE](To expand on Dirty Meg's post): Descartes was the first major figure to try applying mathematical reasoning to the less concrete sciences. In proving the existence of everything around us, a difficult task, he takes the obvious logical approach:
Proof by Contradiction!
So, assume that nothing exists; prove it. One here runs into a bit of a logical fallacy -- and a gap in math's definition of proof. See, they'd never realized that
something has to do the proving...
... very well, so if
I, Aleph-null, the first of the infinite cardinalities, am to prove the nonexistence of the universe, then
I must exist!
(He then tried to prove the existence of, among other things, God, but his logic had basically broken down after this first, excellent point.)