Math Mods' Office - 2016-10-07

5:18 AM

@arjafi: This is getting out of hand. I have told him at least 10 times now to stop pinging me but he refuses to. After weaseling out by claiming I am wrong because what I said does not hold for intuitionistic logic at math.stackexchange.com/questions/1783025/…, long after I had assumed we both are talking about classical first-order logic, he continued to post comments on a number of old posts of mine:

I upvoted this before. I would guess that the rule of $\land$ elimination says that from a conjunction of propositions, we may infer any of those conjuncts. But here we transition from (P $\lor$ Q) $\land$ (P $\lor$ R) to P $\lor$ Q. By inspection, (P $\lor$ Q) is not equiform with P $\lor$ Q. So, it does not seem that the correctness of reasoning can get checked without reference to meaning of the symbols in the above. It looks like conjunction elimination has broken down as a rule of inference (quasi-empiricism is not prohibited in formal logic). Also... — Doug Spoonwood 10 hours ago

The first use of some negation introduction rule has some formula x, more specifically r $\rightarrow$ p, then yielding $\lnot$(x). Then later we have some formula x, specifically $\lnot$q leading to a contradiction, and we have $\lnot$$\lnot$x (two later uses of this negation introduction rule also). Can a careful reader confirm the negation introduction rule correct, if there is just one? Or do we throw out a negation introduction rule? Or do we have two negation introduction rules? Also, notice the use of the inference of a contradiction... — Doug Spoonwood 5 hours ago

In Polish notation one might write 1. CCpAqrACpqCpr. 2. CCpAqrACpqCsr and 3. CCpAqrACsqCpr have the same bracket type as 1. and are tautologies also. A double check on that is here: codeskulptor.org/#user42_BY5vtccr9k_0.py Neither 2. nor 3. has a converse like 1. If we assume the disjunction of the first variable and the negation of the first variable instead of that of the second variable, with some more work, all three of those tautologies can proved with a similar plan for each of them. But, I believe any of those proofs longer than the idea sketched above. — Doug Spoonwood 3 hours ago

All of which are totally irrelevant to my answer and instead all about his foolish willful ignorance that operator precedence can be machine verified.

If this does not count as (mild) harassment, I don't know what to call it. Should I flag the comments? Do other moderators like @DanielFischer mind telling me what they think about this? It's not exactly spam, and not an abuse of the site, but I'm sure it's crank content, if not simply a troll.

@arjafi: And actually, his comment is self-contradictory. He claims something is a tautology yet not provable in 'such a system'.......

@amWhy: I begin to wonder whether he targets one person at a time.

Martin Sleziak

6:55 AM

In tagging chatroom wythagoras reminded two older issues who gained some support in tag management thread, but they cannot be done without moderator's intervention (just by regular users). So if some of the mods has a time to look at them, perhaps you could comment there and - if appropriate - take some action.

in Tagging, 2 mins ago, by Martin Sleziak

Renaming the adjoint tag (in order to make clear that it is about linear algebra, adjoint operators, adjungate matrices, ...) definitely needs moderator intervention. And probably so does the synonym for [tag;chaos-theory]. I count only 5 users who have score at least 5 and could vote on the tag synonym.

Martin Sleziak

7:10 AM

And I have added two more tag related issues where help of the moderators might be needed.

in Tagging, 48 secs ago, by Martin Sleziak

TL;DR: So to summarize, it would be nice to get some input from mods on: 1) adjoints, 2) chaos-theory, 3) subspaces, 4) (prime and maximal) ideals.

Martin Sleziak

8:33 AM

BTW did somebody looked into the post ban mentioned here. (I suppose that regular users cannot do much more than point the user to some general advice. Moderators probably have some tools by which they can investigate this in a bit more detail.)

Asaf Karagila

1:16 PM

Can any moderator please check up on what's going on with the whole "let's require registration for asking questions"? It's been nearly two years, there was a massive amount of support from the community... and then nothing happened.

Martin Sleziak

@AsafKaragila I asked about the same thing last month: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/20352/2016/9/19

And, as quite often in chat, I have also answered my question.

Asaf Karagila

@MartinSleziak We can probably find this question being asked repeatedly for the last two years... :\

@MartinSleziak But the system was essentially revamped about a year ago. So what's the current excuse?

Martin Sleziak

Let's wait and see. After all, this is mods' office, perhaps some of the mods will respond.

Asaf Karagila

Modernists?

user21820

2:32 PM

@AsafKaragila: I totally second that motion. I do not see anything unacceptable about requiring registration for new users, who are almost invariably here to ask questions and get answers (as per the site's explicit purpose!) and so registration can't be too much to ask for.

Martin Sleziak

Quote from here: "...the value of one person happening by with some gold nugget of absolutely the right information you need vastly outweighs the cost of ongoing moderation of anonymous posts."

So if the overlords still have the same view on this, I don't think it is going to change.

But, as already mentioned, only mods can tell us whether they communicated to SE staff results of the discussion on our local meta and what the response was.

amWhy

@user21820 Yesterday I was visited by Doug (through a comment below my answer to a propositional/deductive argument argument). I remember concluding that "u". Doug felt he needed to confirm that he " got $u$ too" through some computer program that tests such proofs, but..... (I tried finding the question, but it has since been deleted by OP?) I am sure I will expect more from Doug...he seems to just be realizing I'm "back again" after my year-long break from the site.

Asaf Karagila

@amWhy In a dream?

amWhy

I'm really thinking (Doug S) he's a mix of a troll and a crank, who feels that his input on others' answers /his challenges/his "alternative logics"/ his "yes, buts" are necessary.

@AsafKaragila Good one! But I'm quite certain, unless I'm psychotic, that it really happened.!

Asaf Karagila

2:47 PM

@amWhy You might be psychotic, I'm not a licensed shrink, but it might have happened regardless. Also, dreaming about something doesn't mean that you're psychotic.

I recently found out that a paper that I've quoted in real life conversations several times over the past few years is nothing but a false memory from a dream. Too bad I didn't look at the proof. :(

3

amWhy

Nah, ha Question [How do I get the first premise and find it's proper conclusion?]
@amWhy I translated all of the premisses into Englebretsen/Sommers term functor logic via (abbreviated) propositional normalization, or something like that, and also found that [u] would make for the conclusion given all of the hypotheses. Then I introduced the tautology -[u] + [u] +[v], so that [u] and -[u] + [u] + [v] add up to [u] + [v] (it sure looks like addition after translation... how could I not have used a formula language modeled upon that of arithmetic for pure thought!). But, it is doubtful that …

Asaf Karagila

The real question is how do you get the first premice?

amWhy

@AsafKaragila Maybe it'll come back to me in a dream!

user21820

3:07 PM

@amWhy: Lol! I can't believe he has the tenacity to pursue so far though.. no other person (even crank or troll) has done this to me before.

@AsafKaragila: We're having a shared dream, you say?

amWhy

@user21820 He keeps trying to get us to recognize him or engage him. Even to the extent that a troll goes. I remember (repeatedly) telling him, after a year or so of his reappearances (back in 2012/2013), that I will not engage him; that if he disagreed with me or felt the need to elaborate, he was welcome to post his issues with the question, and/or my answer, as an answer, where answers belong. At this point, I realize that most of the community is aware of him and his "neediness" to be heard;

user21820

Yea

A pity he doesn't just go and learn stuff

The so many years he has spent engaging people is more than enough for him to become a real expert on logic!

And by the way, there were already a few times I dreamt I solved some relatively interesting and difficult math problem, but when I woke up all I was certain about was that I had really done so, but I could remember neither the problem nor the proof.

amWhy

@user21820 Don't you just hate that? (Been there!)

user21820

@amWhy: Heheh if one day I actually recall such a problem in my dream, then I will at least have reason to really want to remember.. as of now it could be self-illusion!

Though if I solve a problem before I sleep, I usually can recall the solution. So not too bad!

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$Mathematics$ Math Mods' Office