FOM: background for Friedman's results

[Stephen G Simpson]

Torkel Franzen 17 Mar 1998 09:00:20 writes:
 >   Your further comments add nothing to the point. 

Perhaps I wasn't really addressing your point.  Actually, I was only
trying to be helpful.  I tried to help you by concisely presenting
some relevant background information about large cardinals, finite
trees, and Ramsey's theorem.  I thought that this mathematical
information might be useful to you (and perhaps others?) in your
ongoing struggle to grasp the statement of Friedman's results.

By the way, how is your struggle progressing?  Are you still
in the "slack-jawed" phase?

 > It's unclear if you are suggesting that whether Friedman's results
 > are an epochal advance in foundations does not, as I claimed,
 > strongly depend on the applicability of the combinatorial
 > principles and the epistemological status of the large cardinal
 > principles.

I wasn't suggesting that at all.  I didn't intend to attack your
claims.  I was only trying to be helpful.  It never even occurred to
me that you were making these claims in a serious, formal way.

Please allow me one comment.  Before you make claims of this kind,
don't you think you ought to try to understand at least the statement
of Friedman's results, along with the relevant mathematical
background?

-- Steve