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What's the simplest thing humans are too dumb to grasp? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

216 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You ever see a dog that's got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it's never going to make the connection.

Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.

Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (30 children)

Why would it be the same as 1, wouldn’t it always be 0.9 unless you round up at some point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (15 children)

There's lots of proofs for this but this is the simplest one.

.333... = 1/3
.333... • 3 = .999...
1/3 • 3 = 1
Therefore .999... = 1

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (13 children)

Why is .333 being treated the same as a third?

You could have .3 of 2.7 and that wouldn’t be a third. So I don’t see why .3 times 3 would be anything other than 0.9?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

0.333... represents 0.3 repeating, which has an infinite number of 3s and is exactly equal to 1/3.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't agree that they are the same.

It's just that the difference is infinitely small

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The difference is zero, so they’re equal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Well, you state that as a fact, but I’m going to say that the difference is infinitely small, so they are equal

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