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203

Tough Trolly Choices (mander.xyz)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This would apply if I had to pick based on the set of levers in each group. By picking the first one I see I get out of the muck of pure math, I don't care about the set as a whole, I pick the first lever I see, lever x. Doesn't matter if it's levers -10 to 10 real numbers only, my lever x could be lever -7, the set could be some crazy specific set of numbers, doesn't matter I still pick the first one I see regardless of all the others in the set.

Pure math is super fun, but reality is a very big loophole

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What if you couldn't see all the levers. Like every set of levers was inside a warehouse with a guy at a desk who says "just tell me which one you want and I'll bring it out for you."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

The first one that that guy sees, or the first one listed when they tell me what levers they have in the warehouse

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But look at the picture: the levers are not all the same size- they get progressively smaller until (I assume from the ellipsis) they become infinitesimally small. If a cluster has this dense side facing you, then you won’t “see” a lever at all. You would only see a uniform sea of gray or whatever color the levers are. You now have to choose where to zoom in to see your first lever.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They get smaller to show that they're further away in the background not that they get infinitely small. If they were actually getting smaller, then sure, I grab an electron microscope, look at a field of levers, zoom until I see one, and pick that one, then somehow throw an electron sized lever, move to the next, smaller, physics defying lever group and just wait for quantum mechanics to do it's thing I guess

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They have to get smaller to fit the problem statement- if all levers are the same size or have some nonzero minimum size then the full set of levers would be countable!

Now we play the game again 🤓. I start by removing the levers in the field/scale of view of your microscope’s default orientation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Then I moved the microscope until it finds at least one, pick the first one from the new lever group, and my power takes care of throwing that first found/seen lever in the same instant as me throwing it in a normal set of levers