What's the simplest thing humans are too dumb to grasp?
What's the simplest thing humans are too dumb to grasp?
You ever see a dog that's got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it's never going to make the connection.
Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.
Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?
You're viewing a single thread.
Infinity. We're simply too dumb to grasp it. Example:
3*(1/3) = 3/3 = 1 3*(1/3) = 3*(0.333...) = 0.999... 0.999... = 1That "..." means "it continues to the infinite". And yet when you show this reasoning to people, they keep "looking" for the last 9, to claim that 0.999... is not the exact same as 1.
And that applies to all humans. You might counter it rationally, you might train yourself to recognise "it's infinite, so theoretically it'll behave in a certain way", but you don't grasp it. I don't, either.
My "easier" way to think of this one:
1 - 0.999... = 0That is, if you subtract 0.999... from 1, what is the result? It's an infinitely small value, which can only logically be expressed by 0.
Actually infinity is easy to understand.
If you were to walk in a straight line, you would never get to the end of the earth - it is infinite.
Its finitism that is impossible to understand.
3*(1/3) = 3/3 = 1 3*(1/3) = 3*(0.333...) = 0.999... 0.999... = 1
This a problem of the number base you're using, not infinity. One third is a finite number which cannot be expressed in base 10.