I ignore the question and go to the IT and maintenance teams to put a series of blocks, physical and communication-system-based, between the maths and philosophy departments. Attempts to breach containment will be met with deadly force.
IT'S A TRAP
Submitted 5 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/dd931720-08dc-4eea-9268-74fc635a1e79.png
Comments
Sunsofold@lemmings.world 5 months ago
TeddE@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Math is the philosophy department in that math is an extension of logic, which is in turn an extension of philosophy. You’d have a better chance of divorcing math from applied math (engineering/physics) than separating math from philosophy.
Sunsofold@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Tiger_Man_@szmer.info 5 months ago
Considering that there’s a small but non zero chance of surviving getting ran over by a train some of them are gonna survive this and since there are infinite people that will result in infinite train-proof people spawning machine
Wakmrow@hexbear.net 5 months ago
I was actually told this is not how infinite sets work. But I didn’t get an actual explanation beyond that.
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
with the extra requirement that the probability applies to the whole set I think it checks out, intuitively anyway the expected ~0.0…01 * ∞ is still ∞
Zerush@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
I use the lever to kill the train driver.
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I masturbate until I forget about the decision I have to make and then put off cleaning my apartment until I finally just run out, randomly pull the lever, and never think of the consequences again.
Of course by that point everyone has already starved to death which is the worst possible outcome.
moody@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Ah, procrasturbation.
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I pull the lever, if the cart goes over the real numbers it will instantly kill an infinite amount of people and continue killing an infinite amount of people for every moment for the rest of existence.
If I pull the lever a finite amount of people will die instantly and slowly over time tending twords infinity but due to the linear nature of movement it would never actually reach Infinity even if there are an infinite number of people tied to the track a finite amount is all that could ever die.
socsa@piefed.social 5 months ago
All the people tied to the track will die after a few days anyway.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
So you’re going to let those infinite people on top stay tied to the track and starve to death slowly‽
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Probably better than an infinite number of people waiting an infinite amount of time for there impending doom and then also an infinite number of people starving to death, you have to remember ℵ^0 in this case is included in ℵ^1 or at least the numerical value is which is the only information given I guess technically you could value one human soul above the other and technically this is philosophy? So I guess technically you should but anyway everything that happens on ℵ^0 will also happen on ℵ^1 except more will always happen so whether there is unintended consequences or not doesn’t really matter it’s always safer to pick the countable infinities unless there is something innately good about physically having more people no matter there condition but you would have to ask a philosopher about that one I’m paid to pull lever’s not philosophize.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I mean, in that case it’s not really a matter of the trolley killing them, per se. The number will tend towards infinity, until it suddenly spikes to real infinity as people starve.
zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I take the square root of all the negative real numbers and kill in an entirely new dimension.
bizarroland@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I would pull the lever and then steal a bus and knock the trolley off of the track, killing the least amount of people possible.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 5 months ago
sort them so you kill one person first, then 2, then 3, then 4…
Matriks404@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Imagine being the first one being killed on top track.
The probability of that is…?
Mathematicians tell me, please, because my mind is breaking.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 months ago
It's 0. I mean someone has to be the first, but betting on any particular person to be the first will necessarily be a losing bet.
silasmariner@programming.dev 5 months ago
But what if I know Steve’s first and bet it’s Steve?
wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 5 months ago
I’d just close my eyes and believe the bodies I’m trampling are imaginary.
CommissarVulpin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Okay, so what’s the point of “proving” that there some “infinities” are “bigger” than others? What’s the practical application here? Because an infinite hotel with an infinite number of guests is physically impossible, so I don’t see the point.
MBM@lemmings.world 5 months ago
I’ve never been a fan of just saying “some infinities are bigger than others,” to be honest. Way too easy to misunderstand and it’s also kind of meaningless by itself.
carmo55@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
A practical application is for example in probability theory (or anywhere that deals with measures) such as this question:
If we generate a random real number from 0 to 1, what is the probability that it is rational?
Because we know that the continuum is so much larger in a sense than the set of rationals, we can answer this confidently and say the probability is zero, even though it is theoretically possible for us to get a rational number.
Statistics deals with similar scenarios quite frequently, and without it we wouldn’t have the modern scientific method.
bstix@feddit.dk 5 months ago
The real numbers also includes the integers.
The practical consequence of this example is that the integers die regardless of what you choose.
However infinitely many people will survive if you choose the first option.
CommissarVulpin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And yet there can never, and will never, be a situation where an infinite number of people are tied to a railroad track. So this thought experiment is meaningless.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 months ago
Practical application in math tends to be like three degrees of separation and half a century removed from the math at play. In this case, all of modern mathematics is based on set theory, so it's more that this stuff allows us to do other, more practically useful math while knowing what we're talking about.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
In the top case has it been arbitrarily decided to include space in between the would-be victims? Or is the top a like number line comparison to the bottom? Because if thats the case it becomes relevant if there is one body for every real number unit of distance. (One body at 0.1 meter, and at 0.01 meter, at 0.001, etc)
If so then there’s an infinite amount of victims on the first planck length of the bottom track. An infinite number of victims would contain every possible victim. Every single possible person on the first plank length. So on the next planck length would be every possible person again. Which would mean that the bottom track is actually choosing a universe of perpetual endless suffering and death for every single possible person. The top track would eventually cause infinite suffering but it would take forever to get there. The bottom track starts at infinite suffering and extends infinitely in this manner.
halvar@lemy.lol 5 months ago
there are more real numbers than integers though
ThermonuclearEgg@hexbear.net 5 months ago
The image actually says this
OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Bottom has infinite density and will collapse into a black hole killing everyone, and destroying the tram and lever.
niktemadur@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Ah, so now Schwarzschild is driving the trolley!
Or maybe he’s coming to stop the trolley!
Or maybe Feynman is coming, to renormalize the infinities!
I really don’t know anymore! Aleph nought, Aleph omega… go away, come again some other… perhaps infinite… day.
magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 5 months ago
Bottom. Killing one person for every real number implies there’s a way to count all real numbers one by one. This is a contradiction, because real numbers are uncountable. By principle of explosion, I’m Superman, which means I can stop the train by my super powers. QED
nekbardrun@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Either that or the humans are so “infinitely packed” that they’re probably already dead squashed into each other.
Now, if you put infinite people in a chamber, and then compress the chamber and then put an infinite amount of compressed chambers inside a chamber… Will we have Real People?
woodenghost@hexbear.net 5 months ago
Also almost all real numbers are undefinable. (Unless you’re using a model, that makes them countable.)
So that means, if they are all different, than almost all the “humans” on the bottom track are something we can not even imagine in principle. Wouldn’t be surprised, if infinite Superman’s where among them.
plinky@hexbear.net 5 months ago
plus uncountable infinity implies there is uncountable supply of humans, which is nice.
rooroo@feddit.org 5 months ago
Wait until your league of super heroes is up against the axis of choice.
TomMasz@piefed.social 5 months ago
I remember seeing a science show on PBS where the presenter explained how there are different infinities by using set theory and the integers/reals. That was mind-blowing at the time.
dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Bottom. Greater probability that it gets stuck in the corpses.
AkatsukiLevi@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Hold the lever halfway so the trolley picks both rails at the same time, to ensure highest possible kill comboq
davidgro@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That’s effectively just the bottom track, where an uncountable number of people (literally) will die as soon as the train reaches position (0.
AkatsukiLevi@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not with that attitude :3
mumblerfish@lemmy.world 5 months ago
In the top one you will never actually kill an infinite number of people, just approach it linearly. The bottom one will kill an infinite amount of people in finite time.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 5 months ago
eleijeep@piefed.social 5 months ago
The bottom one will kill an infinite amount of people in finite time.
instantaneously FTFY
buffing_lecturer@leminal.space 5 months ago
Limits still are not intuitive to me. Whats the distinction here?
turdcollector69@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Different slopes.
On top you kill one person per whole number increment. 0 -> 1 kills one person
On bottom you kill infinity people per whole number increment. 0 -> 1 kills infinity people
You can basically think of it like the entirety of the top rail happens for each step of the bottom rail.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There are an infinite amount of real numbers between 0 and 1. On the top track, when you reach 1, you would only kill 1 person. But on the bottom track you would’ve already killed infinite people by the time you reached 1. And you would continue to kill infinite people every time you reached a new whole number.
On the top track. You would tend towards infinity, meaning the train would never actually kill infinite people; There would always be more people to kill, and the train would always be moving forwards. Those two constants are what make it tend towards infinity, but the train can never actually reach infinity as there is no end to the tracks.
But on the bottom track. The train can reach infinity multiple times, and will do so every time it reaches a whole number. Basically, by the time you’ve reached 1, the bottom track has already killed more people than the top track ever will.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 months ago
If people on the top rail are equally spaced at a distance d from each other, then you'd need to go a distance nd to kill the nth person. For any number n, nd is just a number, so it'll never be infinity. Meanwhile the number of real numbers between 0 and 1 is infinite (for example you have 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, etc), so running a distance d will kill an infinite number of people. Think of it like this: The people on the top are blocks, so walking a finite distance you only step on a finite number of blocks. Meanwhile the people on the bottom are infinitely thin sheets. To even have a thickness you need an infinite number of them.
mrmacduggan@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
For every integer, there are an infinite number of real numbers until the next integer. So you can’t make a 1:1 correspondence. They’re both infinite, but this shows that the reals are more infinite.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’m going bottom.
NOT LIKE THAT. Not like sexually. I just mean I want to kill all the people on the bottom with my train.
a_person@piefed.social 5 months ago
So still sexually
ConstantPain@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Too late! Now bend…
kometes@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“smallest”?
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Use the fact that a set people corresponding to the real numbers are laying in a single line to prove that the real numbers are countable, thus throwing the mathematics community into chaos, and using this as a distraction to sabotage the trolley and save everybody.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 months ago
Hey, maybe they're infinitely thin people, in which case you can have one for every real number.
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Doesn’t matter, there are not enough people to try this anyway
eleijeep@piefed.social 5 months ago
Population expansion is exponential but the tram moves at constant velocity, so by the time it reaches the end of the track of 8bn people there will be an exponentially increasing number of people further down the track.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Depends on the speed of the trolley.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not with that attitude
OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Can I group the people into groups of 1, then 2, then 3 and so forth? When the trolley is done with the killing, it will have killed -1/12 people.