a consequence of the axiom of choice is that every set can be given a well ordering. and well orderings always have smallest elements, but they may not have largest elements.

so there is someone who is the least gay, but there may not be a single person who is the most gay.

[–] kogasa@programming.dev 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The axiom of choice doesn't say one way or another whether the spectrum in "the standard order" (is there a standard definition of more/less gay?) is a well ordering, only that there is some well ordering.

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[–] i_love_FFT@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago (7 children)

The axiom of choice allows to duplicate a sphere...

I know mathematicians tend to approve of it, but the naturalist in me knows it's bullshit.

[–] affiliate@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

you could think about it this way: one sphere and two spheres have the same “number” of points. (in the same way that there are just as many real numbers as there are real numbers in the interval (0,1).)

so, it becomes “”plausible”” that you could use one sphere to construct two spheres (because in some sense, you aren’t “adding any new points”).

but in the real world, “spheres” only have a finite number of atoms. so if we regard atoms as “points”, then it’s no longer true that one sphere and two spheres have the same number of “points”. and in some sense, this is why the sphere duplication trick doesn’t work in the real world.

it’s also worth mentioning that you have to do some pretty fucked up and unusual things in order to actually duplicate the sphere, and if you don’t allow such weird things to be done to the sphere, then it’s no longer possible to duplicate it, even with the axiom of choice.

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[–] Korne127@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

yay homophobia…

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