FOM: social construction?

[Vaughan Pratt]

From: <wtait at ix.netcom.com>
>If the entire membership of AMS emailed in stating that there are only 
>finitely many prime numbers, I would be shocked that so many people had 
>gone mad all at once, not that an arithmetic truth had become false.

I think my reaction would be less shock than extreme loneliness and
perhaps even eventual capitulation (hard to imagine though).  Ionescu's
"Rhinoceros" is about this idea, with transformation into a rhinoceros
in place of belief in finitude of primes.  Near the end the narrator's
closest friends succumb, and finally so does the narrator.

Vaughan Pratt