Comment on Is the damsel in distress trope just independent?

woop_woop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• solrize@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  OP is making sort of a math joke. Independent (always in relation to a given set of axioms) means that you can’t prove the truth or falsehood of the statement from just those axioms. Particularly, there are alternate universes A and B, both consistent with the axioms, where the statement is true in A but false in B.

  Here, the two universes are “women who like the trope” and “women who think the trope is sexist”. The two universes both existing means there is no definite truth of the matter, and “independent” evokes that indefiniteness.

  Overall, a lame joke imho, but whatever. Sorry, OP.

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  • woop_woop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Given the community it was posted in, I assumed good faith. A quick Google of the terms used seemed to point to either someone taking theory too far or I was really missing something.

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  • bluesheep@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s some highly pretentious smart-than-thou way of asking a question lmao

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  • jannaultheal@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes, you’re right (except it’s **not ** a joke). Not sure why the other person seems to be dismissive about model theory, reducing an entire field of mathematics to “people are different and think different things”.

    But I still wonder : Are there any axioms that can decide the statement about damsels in distress, just like how axioms can be added to ZFC that decide CH, like V=L and proper forcing axioms as I pointed out?

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    • solrize@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Real life is not math. To get more pointy headed about it, math has been described as the one place where classical logic actually works. In other contexts, you can’t really chain inferences more than one or two deep, can’t really use the law of excluded middle. The blue-eyed islanders’ problem can only be seen as a clever math puzzle rather than a question about a hypothetical reality, etc.

      For those who don’t understand the above: you’re not missing much, so don’t worry.

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      • Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Real life is not math.

        Tell that to graph theory.

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• jannaultheal@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I mean in the same way that the continuum hypothesis is independent of ZFC. Godel constructed a model of ZFC where it’s true, and Cohen constructed a model where it’s false. We now have two models, both equally valid and satisfying all the axioms of ZFC, but in one, CH is true and in the other, CH is false, proving that CH is independent of ZFC.

  Likewise, we can find one woman who enjoys the damsel in distress trope and think it’s harmless fun, and we can find another women who thinks it perpetuates sexist stereotypes against women. Just like in the case above, we have two women, whose views are equally valid, but coming to opposite conclusions. Therefore, we can conclude, just like Godel and Cohen did, that the statement about damsels in distress is independent of the axioms.

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  • woop_woop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    As a layman who had to look up half that bullshit, I think you’re coming across something much simpler that cant and shouldn’t be solved by one of your theorems: people are different and think different things. With beliefs, there are many truths.

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    • jannaultheal@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think it goes deeper than that. There are people who disagree with the axiom of choice, finitists who disagree with the axiom of infinity, etc. But it’s a proven theorem (not independent) that ZFC proves the existence of uncountably infinite sets, non-measurable sets, etc. On the other hand, ZFC doesn’t prove nor disprove CH.

      So it’s much deeper than merely “people are different and think different things”.

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      • woop_woop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I think you’ve got that backwards. “People are different and think different things” is the constant and the rest of what’s you’re drilling into is an attempt to discover the pattern in it.

        So let’s go Socratic: why are you asking this?

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