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John Bollinger

 Discussion on question by flox: How t…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John Bollinger
Mon 02:54
... and that would include the ship coming to a standstill, too, unless possibly you're invoking some kind of instantaneous time travel into the future. "Finally awoken" conveys the idea that the starship has been floating around in space for billions of years, but it's not at all realistic that your starship maintains its physical integrity and operational power over such a time frame. All the stars have gone out, mind you. It's your story, of course, and it doesn't have to be realistic, but you're the one asking for explanations for how the ship might do what you want it to do.
 

 Discussion between Syed and John Boll…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Jul 8 19:40
@Syed, I think you are getting too hung up on the deific influence example. I think you're making unsupported assumptions in support of your claim, but what form the analysis takes doesn't actually matter if reasonable people can disagree about how or whether your principle applies. The point is that although your principle makes sense in an abstract sense, it is not practical to apply it to interesting cases.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:22
There is even more trouble evaluating "fewer" when comparing collections that are not so closely related as the integers and the rationals.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:18
You say "way more complex", but it's not clear that that must mean fewer unexplained things. Consider that the rational numbers together with addition and multiplication are more complex than the integers (with addition and multiplication) and even contain the integers as a strict subset, yet there are not any more rationals than there are integers.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:18
Note well that I am not arguing in favor of a deific influence theory. It is merely an example that I take to be pretty stark. But in arguing about the magnitude of the unexplained, you have come up against one of my main points: how do you quantify?
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:08
Consider also that even if you're not impressed by the specific example I raised, you seem to have accepted my underlying premise. Your approach to arguing that a naturalistic theory would have fewer unexplained things was exactly what I described: you claimed that the things unexplained by a naturalistic theory would be a strict subset of those unexplained by a deific influence theory. You can't rely on such a relationship to apply to every pair of conflicting theories.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:08
So yes, I can conceive of rejecting the existence of physical laws. Their existence is part of a theory that has been pretty successful for us, but that doesn't make the theory true. Evaluating this theory against the deific influence theory is exactly the kind of thing we would like a principle along the line of yours to be able to do, but I don't think yours can do it.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:08
What physical laws are those, @Syed? We are prone to hypothesize that the regularities we observe in the universe reflect underlying physical laws. We formulate theories about those laws and their form. We have had good success this way in developing abilities to make reasonably accurate predictions about observations we will make in the future. But there don't need to be any physical laws, known or unknown, at the bottom of that to explain any of it. Maybe the regularities we observe instead reflect the current mood of a Deity who sustains the universe purely by an exercise of will.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:08
@MichaelHall, how do you quantify? Or how do you even decide what to quantify? That is, how do you decide whether the origin of matter is a different unexplained thing than the origin of photosynthesis? We can get at "fewer" if we can say that what one theory leaves unexplained is a strict subset of what another does, but otherwise, I don't think it's an answerable question.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:08
You misunderstand, @Syed. When I say "deific influence", I don't mean (merely) a creator deity. I mean explaining every single thing about the physical universe by "Deity wills it so". Now we have zero unexplained observations of the universe (and no physical laws per se), but plenty is unexplained about the deity.
John Bollinger
Jul 8 17:08
How do you intend to measure "fewer", other than when the questions answered by one theory are a strict subset of those explained by another? For an extreme example, suppose we stand up deific influence as an explanation of the physical universe and everything in it against naturalism with a set of physical laws whose number and exact form we don't (and maybe can't) know. Which leaves fewer unexplained things? Are all the unexplained characteristics of the proposed deity more or fewer than all the unknown details of the supposed physical laws?
 

 Discussion on answer by haxor789: Why…

Imported from a comment discussion on politics.stackexchange.c...
John Bollinger
Jul 1 01:30
Fair question, @haxor789. On consideration, I have to take back one previous claim: it is not so secondary that there is no police enforcing treaty. Law is rules and directives set out by an authority with the power and will to compel compliance, by force if necessary. A police force is one tool for compelling such compliance, so not so secondary after all.
John Bollinger
Jul 1 01:30
@haxor789, the rules and obligations of the U.N. charter are what that claims are binding on members. In addition to diplomatic agreements, no matter how binding they claim to be, not being law, that treaty does not claim to grant the U.N. power to regulate or direct the actions of member nations anyway. The U.N. is not a government. The resolutions of its organs are not law. The U.N. itself does not claim so.
John Bollinger
Jul 1 01:30
International treaties are not law, except to the extent that the countries involved make it so -- which is also the extent to which they can make it not so any longer. The U.N. is not a lawmaking body, and Countries are not automatically bound to anything it decides. Countries acting contrary to their treaties is not "illegal". At the level of national action, fulfilling obligations under a treaty is a complex matter of cost / benefit, not one of law. That there is no police force enforcing international treaties is a secondary matter at best.
John Bollinger
Jul 1 01:30
"Illegal" is more than a little too strong for "the United Nations is against it." I'd agree, however, that the United Nations is representative of the greater diplomatic costs that attend engaging in direct hostilities these days.
 

 Discussion on question by So Few Agai…

Imported from a comment discussion on christianity.stackexchan...
John Bollinger
Jun 20 11:07
@SoFewAgainstSoMany, almost nothing is ever "as simple as that". That's very much so when interpreting scripture, which we must do in light of the whole lest we invite error. God is a God of justice, and he commanded earthly punishment for a variety of earthly transgressions, including capital punishment for some. Jesus did say "do not resist an evil person", but he also said "I did not come to abolish the law". So no, it's not simple.
 

 Discussion on question by Charles Hen…

Imported from a comment discussion on codereview.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Apr 9 23:12
@pjs, that would be an improvement for computing only the millionth Fibonacci number, but not for computing all the Fibonacci numbers up to the millionth, as the OP characterizes the behavior of their code. Also, since we're talking about exact arithmetic with arbitrarily large operands, we cannot assume that arithmetic operations are O(1). It is not correct to characterize your version as O(log n) in that context.
John Bollinger
Apr 9 23:12
I do not accept that the change described in this answer is responsible for reducing runtime by any measurable amount, much less 50%. If such a performance difference was observed, then it will have been attributable to changes in parts of the overall program that are not presented in the question, and / or to changes in the execution environment or the manner in which the program is being run.
John Bollinger
Apr 9 23:12
You must use BigInteger for variables that hold Fibbonacci numbers. But you do not need BigInteger for the iteration variable.
 

 Discussion on answer by o.m.: Can you…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
John Bollinger
Mar 29 18:18
The White House claims that the chat did not contain any classified material.
 

 Discussion on question by ray grant: …

Imported from a comment discussion on christianity.stackexchan...
John Bollinger
Mar 22 01:11
Considered by whom? This is an essential distinction, lying at the heart of why you have opposite answers. If you mean by the theological authorities of the various Christian faith traditions you name then you get one answer. If you mean by individuals who consider themselves Christian or by arbitrary people of any faith or without faith then you get a different answer.
 

 Discussion on question by Peter - Rei…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
John Bollinger
Mar 19 17:17
There absolutely is such a controversy, @prosfilaes, though it is getting more play in rightward-leaning media. That is the context in which Trump made that declaration and the basis for the quotes in his "'Pardons'", and he goes into some detail about it.
John Bollinger
Mar 19 03:55
@prosfilaes, the likelihood of such an argument prevailing is irrelevant (though I did say that the effort was likely in vain). My point has always been that there is no serious controversy about whether signing via an autopen, itself, makes a presidential order invalid. That is not a claim than anyone is making. Rather, the controversy is about whether any specific autopen-signed orders are invalid because, in effect, they were not orders by the president himself in the first place.
John Bollinger
Mar 18 19:40
@Peter-ReinstateMonica, the question can be resolved by asking the man himself if one trusts the man to answer truthfully and accurately. A person seeking to prove the pardons invalid (likely in vain) could argue that Mr. Biden might or does have reason to approve of the pardons whether or not they were signed with his knowledge and consent, so that he has a motive for being untruthful about his knowledge and consent at the time. Or even that he might be earnest, but mistaken. Approving only now, after he is out of office, seems unlikely to be sufficient.
John Bollinger
Mar 18 19:40
The current controversy over autopen use is not so much about the autopen itself, but rather about whether in every case the documents were (autopen-)signed with Mr. Biden's knowledge and at his instruction.
 

 Discussion on answer by littleadv: Wh…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
John Bollinger
Mar 10 20:52
@osiris, no? I suppose you're connecting those two things through the terror group in question also endorsing or even engaging in the act(s) in question, but that two people or groups endorse or perform the same acts does not imply that one supports the other.
 

 Discussion on question by Erel Segal-…

Imported from a comment discussion on english.stackexchange.co...
John Bollinger
Feb 27 14:27
The examples you have rejected are all metaphors. Does the phrase you are looking for have to be metaphorical? Apparently the "totally incomprehensible" you use in the question does not meet your requirements, so I'm not entirely sure what characteristics you're looking for.
 

 Discussion on question by Ventolinmon…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
John Bollinger
Jan 29 01:34
Inasmuch as this question is about how to understand certain calls for abstracts, it would be much improved by including an example or two of the relevant parts of such a call. As it is, we can say "you're reading it wrong" (which you surely are), but we can only guess at how or why you are doing so.
 

 Discussion on answer by Dark Malthorp…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Oct 30, 2024 12:08
I'm being serious, @Rushi, though I know that the question might be taken a bit provocatively. It was intended more for Dark, but your thoughts and others' are welcome. I said "religious monotheism" specifically because this answer's characterization of philosophical monotheism seems less consistent with a point-of-view shift into solipsism. I am exploring the idea that some of the distinctions drawn can be seen as a matter of perspective.
John Bollinger
Oct 30, 2024 12:08
Would you then say it's fair to characterize solipsism as a form of religious monotheism, where God = me?
 

 Discussion on question by user80226: …

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Sep 17, 2024 14:39
The question seems altogether hypothetical, in the sense that no human religion I know accepts all three of the postulates presented. Note in particular that there is an enormous difference between God being unable to create beings who cannot sin, and God choosing to create beings of a different kind. Hypothetical is ok, of course, but one should be clear about how the question relates (or not) to real-world religions.
 

 Discussion on question by The Pointer…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Sep 10, 2024 04:43
You don't need Gödel to see that mathematics, and philosophy more generally, does not reveal any absolute truths.
 

 Discussion on question by Leo B.: Whi…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...
John Bollinger
Aug 29, 2024 21:26
@thebusybee, it is a fairly widespread interpretation of C that indeed it does not have true multidimensional arrays. This comes from making a distinction between multidimensional arrays as monolithic objects, such as Fortran's, and C-style arrays of arrays that have semantically distinguishable sub-objects between the n-D array and the individual elements. This is probably not a useful distinction within the context of a single language, but it is a reasonable aspect on which to compare different languages.
 

 Discussion on answer by Kodiologist: …

Imported from a comment discussion on english.stackexchange.co...
John Bollinger
Aug 13, 2024 13:25
There are two independent clauses in your (2). How is it that the comma is not required in that case?
 

 Discussion on answer by Bumble: Can i…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Aug 7, 2024 18:49
@JD, I have not appealed to impredicativity as a basis for my criticism, and it is incidental that the claim in question is an existential one. Even if you attribute significance for impredicativity to existential claims, I still see no sound reason to bring impredicativity into this particular question.
John Bollinger
Aug 7, 2024 18:49
@JD, I'm not sure why you think I'm making any claim about impredicativity. I don't see how the claim "something exists" is impredicative. Indeed, as I understand the term, it is ordinarily applied to definitions, not claims. I have simply observed that a proof that depends on assuming its conclusion says nothing meaningful about the truth of that conclusion. I don't think that's controversial.
John Bollinger
Aug 7, 2024 18:49
@Bumble, "If I use logic to prove the law of excluded middle (P ∨ ¬P) would you object that this is circular because the logic assumes it?" -- yes, I would. "If so, then all proofs of theorems of logic are circular" -- no, not by any means. But logic does not produce absolutely true statements about the subject of the logic. It produces only conditional statements: if the assumptions we have made are true, then some conclusion is true. If you like, we can further qualify that as "X system of logic supports the conclusion". That doesn't make proofs circular.
John Bollinger
Aug 7, 2024 18:49
@Bumble, I think the point is that a proof that something exists is circular if it depends on assuming that something exists. And this proof does. That doesn't make it wrong, just meaningless. Not that I personally have any objection to assuming that something exists.
 

 Discussion on answer by causative: Th…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Aug 3, 2024 05:37
@bob, For any given time in the half-open interval [0, 2) other than the exact time of a switch, you can compute whether the switch is on or off with probability 1. Perhaps you were thinking of something like computing the probability of the lamp being on at a time chosen randomly from that interval or a subinterval. My intuition is that if you did that over smaller and smaller tail intervals then the probability would converge to 50% as the interval size went to 0.
 

 Discussion on question by Fraser Pye:…

Imported from a comment discussion on math.stackexchange.com/q...
John Bollinger
Apr 5, 2024 17:23
No, @AdamRubinson, you shouldn't. Accepting that there are undecidable propositions, as indeed we should, does not undercut the validity of proofs that do not rely, directly or indirectly, on there not being any undecidable propositions (constructive proofs).
 

 Discussion on answer by ruben2020: Is…

Imported from a comment discussion on opensource.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Apr 5, 2024 05:52
The key here is the definition of "source code", as already quoted in this answer. Inasmuch as the magic compiler is incorporating binary code not derived from system libraries into the built artifact, one needs to appreciate that the bits automagically inserted by the compiler are part of what people to whom the program is distributed must be able to modify. It follows that source must be provided for that, too.
 

 Discussion on question by Pamela Gall…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
John Bollinger
Mar 14, 2024 20:08
I get dozens of e-mails per day, counting only those that get past my spam filters. At $0.40 per e-mail, that would amount to thousands of dollars for just one year of e-mails. Issues of legality aside, this is far too generous to believe.
 

 Discussion on question by user366312:…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
John Bollinger
Feb 27, 2024 16:16
I have programmed in more than a dozen languages over my career, spanning from M68K assembly to Ruby, and every single one of them has something going for it. Even Perl. I absolutely have my preferences, and they have changed over time. You are better off having more tools in your toolbox, even if you prefer to avoid some of them. You are definitely handicapping yourself if you reject popular tools of your discipline, no matter the reason. And you are probably doing yourself a disservice by feeling so strongly about any language that you call it "hate".
 

 Discussion on question by Baby_philos…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
John Bollinger
Feb 8, 2024 18:07
@Baby_philosopher, I know well Einstein's famous "God does not play dice with the universe" remark. But he has been dead for nearly 70 years, and the remark is older than that. He is not a modern-day physicist. As for "more than 40-50% of physicists believe in a deterministic interpretation of QM", again, citation needed. By which I mean exactly that. I don't have personal knowledge to the contrary, but I find the assertion doubtful.
John Bollinger
Feb 8, 2024 18:02
The John Bollinger, @Baby_philosopher? Probably not. I am well enough known in some circles, but not so much that I would expect to receive the definite article.
John Bollinger
Feb 8, 2024 17:32
"Many physicists even in the modern day tend to be bothered by the indeterminism within quantum mechanics" -- citation needed. Modern-day physicists are one of the few groups that I expect generally to not be bothered by quantum indeterminism.
John Bollinger
Feb 8, 2024 17:32
Summary of the 3rd paragraph: determinism means that everything is pre-determined. Yes. So what?
John Bollinger
Feb 8, 2024 17:32
Summary of the 2nd paragraph: it might be the case that a state of the world A can lead to states B, C, or D with equal probability, or it might be that A inevitably leads to B. Ok. So what?
 

 Discussion on question by feldentm: S…

Imported from a comment discussion on langdev.stackexchange.co...
John Bollinger
Dec 11, 2023 20:55
@PaŭloEbermann, Java has one unsigned integer type: 16-bit char.
John Bollinger
Dec 11, 2023 20:55
The question seems to be putting the cart before the horse. You should consider first what your byte type represents. Is it indeed like C++'s std::byte, which represents only a collection of bits, to which signedness is irrelevant? Is it a character type, like C char? Or if instead it is a small numeric type then do you want it to be signed? (There are good arguments against general numeric types being unsigned.) And do you even need to choose? If you see usefulness for both signed and unsigned versions, then why can't you have both?