Is Global Warming a Hoax?

[JKDS]

2+2=5 for very large values of 2.

[JKDS]

2+2=5 for very large values of 2.

This literally happens all the time, especially in science.

2+2=6 is much less likely to occur.

[Poopadoop]

2+2=5 for very large values of 2.

I think I see what you're getting at, but there's no larger or smaller values of 2. When we write '2' we mean '2.0000000000...ad infinitum' So it's not that 2.49999 rounds down to 2 and therefore if 2.49999+2.49999 = 4.999998 and we round that to 5 we show that 2+2=5.

In other words, it's not a mathematical problem given the laws of mathematics today. Obviously 2+2=4 today. The question is what grounds do we have for assuming that 2+2=4 is a constant state of the universe that will go on forever? Past observations. But what we can predict from past observations with 100% certainty? The past.


The famous example is the turkey and the farmer. Every day for his entire life the turkey gets fed by the farmer. Based on these observations, the turkey builds a model of the world in which the farmer is the guy who shows up once a day to feed him. So when the sun comes up on Thanksgiving Day the turkey sees the farmer coming and thinks the farmer is going to feed him again. Instead, chop! How could the turkey have predicted that the farmer was going to do that? There was nothing in the past to suggest it.

IOW, we can't generalise from things we have observed to things we haven't observed. It may be that what is true today is not going to be true tomorrow, and we have no way of knowing it one way or the other.