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Article 2071 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Existence
Message-ID: <10494@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 91 19:33:14 GMT
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In article  <6503@dutrun2.tudelft.nl> Han de Bruijn writes:
]...
]  ____________             Examine now Martijn's counting process in detail.
] /            \            Taking apples out of the basket actually DESTROYS
]|  O           |    O      the set you want to determine the cardinality of.
]|              |  O        || Even more general, it is IMPOSSIBLE to count a
]|  O      O    |   O       || set _without_ disturbing it, one way or another.
] \____________/            If you count apples by just taking a good look, you
]                           have to shoot photons at them, since you can't see
]them without light.

You aren't counting a set, you are counting the physical objects that
make up the set.  The set hasn't changed at all since it has nothing
to do with physical proximity.

]We conclude that, in the process of counting, at least TWO sets are involved:
]1. the set of apples which is still to be counted ("future");
]2. the set of apples which has already been counted ("past").
]The "future" set is destroyed, while the "past" set is created.

Alternatively, at each step of the process you are discussing two
different sets, and one of them is the set of all the objects you
are counting.  None of the sets has changed, only your perspective.
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman


