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Full Idea
A new student of set theory has just one thing, the element, and he has another single thing, the singleton, and not the slightest guidance about what one thing has to do with the other.
Gist of Idea
What on earth is the relationship between a singleton and an element?
Source
David Lewis (Mathematics is Megethology [1993], p.12)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophia Mathematica' [-], p.12
| 10807 | Mathematics reduces to set theory, which reduces, with some mereology, to the singleton function [Lewis] |
| 10806 | Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification to mereology [Lewis] |
| 10808 | Mathematics is generalisations about singleton functions [Lewis] |
| 10809 | We can accept the null set, but not a null class, a class lacking members [Lewis] |
| 10810 | I say that absolutely any things can have a mereological fusion [Lewis] |
| 10811 | The null set plays the role of last resort, for class abstracts and for existence [Lewis] |
| 10812 | The null set is not a little speck of sheer nothingness, a black hole in Reality [Lewis] |
| 10813 | What on earth is the relationship between a singleton and an element? [Lewis] |
| 10814 | Are all singletons exact intrinsic duplicates? [Lewis] |
| 10815 | We don't need 'abstract structures' to have structural truths about successor functions [Lewis] |
| 10816 | We can use mereology to simulate quantification over relations [Lewis] |