On Logic and Alternate Universes

[Edwardo Piet]

Regarding 2+2=5, enumeration doesn't follow logic, but rather, quantification -- and while the labels assigned to each quantity are arbitrary, the quantity itself is not.

I disagree that it doesn't follow logic because the way I see it math is just logic with numbers and logic is just math with words, 2+2=4 in the same way that all bachelors are unmarried.

I think enumeration follows both logic and quantification, in the sense that mathematics is logical and enumeration is a subset of mathematics: But other than that I agree 100%. You're absolutely 100% correct when you say "while the labels assigned to each quantity are arbitrary, the quantity itself is not." This is why 2+2 can never equal 5, because two things and two things simply are not 5 things. It can be labelled to be 5 things but it can't actually be 5 things. When someone says "Oh but in this hypothetical universe an extra thing pops into existence when you add two and two together" that doesn't cut it; it's not the same thing.

So we may disagree on one small detail there, in the sense that I think mathematics and logic are both forms of logic, one is just with numbers and the other with words, but other than that it seems we agree 100% here.