[FOM] The natural numbers as marks on paper

[Eray Ozkural]

On 2/22/06, Martin Davis <martin at eipye.com> wrote:
> Alas, one person's marks on papers are another's abstract object smelling
> foully of Platonism. As Weaver perfectly well knows, a sheet of paper holds
> only finitely many marks. An example of an outstanding mathematician who
> finds the marks-on-paper no help is Jack Schwartz who has written on the
> matter on FOM and elsewhere.

As I indicated on my post about this problem, I think all matters are
easily resolved if one thinks of marks as computer programs. A finite
program can easily denote an "infinite" structure such as the list of
all natural numbers. This does not seem to be Platonist in the least
bit.

Regards,

--
Eray Ozkural (exa), PhD candidate.  Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo  Malfunct: http://www.malfunct.com
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