A priori numbers

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mije Wi
Posts: 96
Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 5:29 pm

A priori numbers

Post by mije Wi »

Hello. I am jan Li (sorry for miswriting), and maybe I am one of those nasa people. I asked myself:

"Does any a priori number exist?"

I think it would be nice to have names for these two numbers, and I am explaining why.

Seven: the maximum number a human can "visualize" is seven (further numbers are seen divided, e.g. 8 = 4+4). So it is much concrete of a number.

150, that is, Dunbar's number: the to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships (further info.s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number). This is another concrete number.

How to name them? I really don't know that. Hope Sonja will read this. Bye
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: A priori numbers

Post by janKipo »

Well, these look like a posteriori numbers, ones found to be significant by experience. They are also somewhat questionable, 7 is a good approximation for that purpose, but the actual range is about 5 to 9 (the 9ers are, admittedly, rather rare and strange). 5 is pretty near universal even for people who don't have a word for 5 (tally marks, say). The social relationships one sounds like it is based on a mathematical model, whose congruence with reality is always very suspect.
But, in any case, they are numbers too big to be useful in tp.
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