[ExI] Fw: Re: Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

[Ben Zaiboc]

Trying again..
------- Forwarded Message -------
From: Ben Zaiboc <benzaiboc at proton.me>
Date: On Thursday, 30 July 2026 at 21:40
Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>

> On 29/07/2026 16:55, Lloyd Miller wrote:
>
>> Aren't numbers derived from counting objects?
>
> My understanding is that we (humans) derive numbers from set theory.
>
> Don't ask me to explain that, I don't understand it, but it's what I've read.
>
> Maybe aliens derive their numbers some other way.
>
> Maybe it's inevitable that all sufficiently intelligent beings derive numbers the same way. Who knows.
>
> Counting objects seems a nice, intuitive way of deriving numbers, and it makes sense to me, but talk to a mathematician. I suspect they'll soon confuse, er, I mean, disabuse you of that idea. You can't derive negative numbers that way, for example, or a lot of the other weird types of numbers that we have defined (I'm not going to get into the whole discovered/invented argument), or in fact, most of mathematics, it seems to me.
>
> Counting things is probably an obscure, tiny and trivial corner of maths.
>
> --Ben
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