Showing posts with label Archimedean ordering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Archimedean ordering. Show all posts

Monday, November 23, 2015

Values cannot be accurately modeled by real numbers

Consider a day in a human life that is just barely worth living. Now consider the life of Beethoven. For no finite n would having n of the barely-worth-living days be better than having all of the life of Beethoven. This suggests that values in human life cannot be modeled by real numbers. For if a and b are positive numbers, then there is always a positive integer n such that nb>a. (I am assuming additiveness between the barely-liveable days. Perhaps memory wiping is needed to ensure additiveness, to avoid tedium?)