Now back to the question
“how many 777 are there in
π.” When I say
that the case of the small first
number gives this question its first meaning
this is to say that our attitude towards this expression is due to it
sounding like that other kind of question. Our attitude can
however change if I now remind you of the cases
I've just been talking about. Why should we ask
this question? – “But don't
mathematicians try to solve it, or
similar questions?” 22. Why should we call what
they are doing “trying to solve this
question”. Why should we not say they add new
constructions to mathematics. Now
consider this expression:
“Surely, either there are n times 777 in
π or not!” A)
this is a tautology, B) if it means that you can't
help yourself & must ask this question, I contradict you
& say that you needn't look at it that way. – Now e.g. you say that the
difficulty about that question is that the
proposition “there are 777 in
π” can only be proved in a general
way, whereas the proposition
‘there are’ can be proved by finding a case of 777
in the development. I should say let that
teach you something about the sense of the question!
Remember that a position or a move in a game gets its sense from
the game. We are liable to get the idea that the
mere form of words has something in it which we must find
or of which we must say that we can't find it.
Now to the question “are there 777 in μ places”. “Surely there are, or there aren't”. This means nothing more nor less than “We know what it means to say 23 ‘that there
are’ or ‘that there
aren't’. Now it is obvious that we
can't straightforwardly say we know in this case what
it means, because to explain what it means we should have to point to
small numbers & why should I accept this explanation for
μ? This is all without much
interest as long as I don't actually
set the task “find out about
μ” for we could use
μ as example though we never thought of
answering the question with respect to
μ! – But if now we try to
find a new method of calculating the answer for
μ then indeed we may ask ourselves in
what sense we can be said to answer the old question, in what sense we
can say that we've found a short
cut. It will depend on the method actually
applied. Ask yourself: What are we to do if
somebody actually calculated
f(μ) by
counting & found a different answer? I
should say: to attribute it to human frailty ‘that we
can't develop all places of
π’ is just thoughtless, you
wouldn't talk like that if you saw the use of your words
clearly. But this is like saying: to say
0:0 = 1
is thoughtlessness, you would not say so if … But one can
never 24 know this & someone
might say this & we would respect it.
Contradiction. What are we to say if someone tells us about a proof: “that all mathematical questions can be solved”. One can use an appellation for a ‘proof’ without regarding it as the answer to a question. |
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