2 + 2 = ?

[Vladimir]

Ok, I'm bored. I'd like to see everyone's thoughts on a simple question.

What does two plus two equal? Is it four, is it something else? Is it something or what can it be? Can it be one?

I'll chime in with my thoughts when this thread sinks to the bottom with no responses.

[Kralizec]

That's a loaded question and you know it

[Viking]

Well if 2 + 2 = ? , then ? - 2 = 2 and -2 = 2 - ?, thus 2 = -2 + ? which means that ? = 4 and 2 + 2 = 4.

[Ronin]

2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.

[Sigurd]

It depends on what you add together.
Instead of the additive effect we normally expect you could get synergetic effects which increases the value or potent of that which is added together.
Go ask a chemist.

Two parts of this poison added with two parts of another poison could increase the effect above double. It does not become 4 but 5. Similarly two other poisons lose some of their potency and become 3 not 4.

[CBR]

It could be 3, 4 or 5


CBR

[drone]

2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.

Only a Nazi would think that!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm assuming this is Vladimir's experiment on Godwin's Law.

[Kaidonni]

For all us lowly cubicle workers, it's 1 (well, the boss would have to sacrifice your Christmas bubbly if he let it go any higher - he'd still manage to get that massive bonus, though).

For accountants, it's anything you want it to be, just don't get caught.

For fundamentalists of any religion, it's a sign you need to be burnt for your blasphemy. Whatever the answer is, it's a trick of the devil.

For computer programmers, it's that bleedin' bug that keeps crashing their work-in-progress.

For a politician, it's that awkward question that will reveal they're really a baby-eating monster intent on world domination, but with little interest in the local education system. And with every intent on raiding the pension funds and taxing everyone to the hilt because they don't know what they're even being asked, but it sounds like a solution.

For the bomb-disposal team, it's 'Oh crap!' - they should have known how to disable bombs before the red liquid was filling up the clear tube and the beeping was increasing in intensity.

So, how was that?

[KukriKhan]

Two, or "2" as it's known to friends (or archaically: II), is the most important number.

It asserts 'an other' than one (1), and thereby implies all other numbers (and words, and languages, and possibilities) out to infinity.

Without 2, one cannot know itself or its environment. Two forces comparison, relationship, an acknowledgement and embracing of other-ness - and thus consciousness.

Without 2, we are left with binary zero-one, on-off, yes-no, alive-dead, endless non-conscious looping. Two breaks out of that paradigm.

Sadly, this theory makes the rest of the sentence (2 + 2 = ?) solveable, but irrelevant. In my opinion.

[Viking]

It depends on what you add together.
Instead of the additive effect we normally expect you could get synergetic effects which increases the value or potent of that which is added together.
Go ask a chemist.

Two parts of this poison added with two parts of another poison could increase the effect above double. It does not become 4 but 5. Similarly two other poisons lose some of their potency and become 3 not 4.

Well, otherwise it is specified, why should we assume it is anything else than ordinary numbers?

[Mikeus Caesar]

2 + 2 can equal5 just because i say it does.

I would go on, but it's been quite a while since i read 1984.

[Louis VI the Fat]

2 + 2 = 3...





...+ 1

[Louis VI the Fat]

Or: 2 + 2 = 3.9999...

That's actually mathematically correct.

[Vladimir]

Heh. Lot of good replies, Viking, Kurki, et. al. Someone, I think it was Pape, put 2+4=4 in one of their posts. I really reject the notion that this is always the case. Two quarts of milk added to two quarts of milk is a gallon of milk. Saying that something "must be" just like 2+2 always "is" 4 is false because the premise is false.

I'm a big fan of it equaling one or five, the latter is refreshing. I've heard that Einstein failed math when he was younger. If that is so, I wondered if it was because he wasn't a genius until he was older or if he grappled with the same problem. Far too often we assume something is so because someone else says it is so.

[Dîn-Heru]

2+2 = 2

In tropical geometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry http://www.math.toronto.edu/mikha/book.pdf

[Furious Mental]

You are all Nazis and I will not obey your fascist rules on mathematical equations. 2 + 2 = whatever the proletariat decides it is.

[Vladimir]

2+2 = 2

In tropical geometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry http://www.math.toronto.edu/mikha/book.pdf

Yea!

[Kommodus]

We'll need some high-level algebra to solve this one.

Let a = 2 and b = 2, so that a = b. Manipulating both sides of the equation,

a = b
2a = a + b (added a)
2a^2 = a^2 + ab (multiplied by a)
2a^2 – 2ab = a^2 – ab (subtracted 2ab)
2a (a – b) = a (a – b) (factored)
2a = a (divided by a – b)

Therefore, a + b = 2a + b = 4 + 2 = 6.

So 2 + 2 = 6.

[Fragony]

Well at least I am pretty

[Kagemusha]

if you add two things to two others, there are myriad number of possible outcomes.

[Vladimir]

I'm sorry but your formula is flawed. If 2+2=? (let's just call the "?" x) that would be 2+2=x which is /= to 2=2





right?

[spmetla]

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?

-George Orwell's 1984

Perhaps I should reread this book. It's been a few years.

[KukriKhan]

Someone, I think it was Pape, put 2+4=4 in one of their posts...Far too often we assume something is so because someone else says it is so.

Now you go beyond math, science, and philosophy, into the realm of hyper-reality. If a Moderator types "2+4=4", then, in this place, at this time, for all intents and purposes, it is unassailably, indisputeably

true.

And he alone can change the past (i.e. other's words) to make it so.

So, is your real question: "What is truth"?

[Kagemusha]

I'm sorry but your formula is flawed. If 2+2=? (let's just call the "?" x) that would be 2+2=x which is /= to 2=2





right?

Nope. If you have two things which are specified as numbers, like for example you will turn into a number in certain statistics, but basicly anything which can be shown as a number.
Then you take two other things only specified as numbers and add those to the original ones. Results from that could turn out to be pretty much anything.

[Vladimir]

Now you go beyond math, science, and philosophy, into the realm of hyper-reality. If a Moderator types "2+4=4", then, in this place, at this time, for all intents and purposes, it is unassailably, indisputeably

true.

And he alone can change the past (i.e. other's words) to make it so.

So, is your real question: "What is truth"?

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?

Wow. Scary.

[Crazed Rabbit]

What units and properties?
[/engineer]

CR

[KukriKhan]

What units and properties?
[/engineer]

CR

Yeah. And, define: "+".

[ICantSpellDawg]

If you add 2 wolves and 2 bunnies you usually get 2 wolves. If you add 4 rocks together really hard you can get any number of smaller rocks.

We live in a physical world, those numbers must represent something and the additive process must have a value (speed of addition, physical process, Etc)

[Viking]

We'll need some high-level algebra to solve this one.

Let a = 2 and b = 2, so that a = b. Manipulating both sides of the equation,

a = b
2a = a + b (added a)
2a^2 = a^2 + ab (multiplied by a)
2a^2 – 2ab = a^2 – ab (subtracted 2ab)
2a (a – b) = a (a – b) (factored)
2a = a (divided by a – b)

Therefore, a + b = 2a + b = 4 + 2 = 6.

So 2 + 2 = 6.

Gah! That one gave me a headache.

If a = b then dividing something with (a-b) is an impossible action as dividing on zero is impossible. I solved the problem, I hope.

[KukriKhan]

2a = a + b (added a)

Is that not a fallacy, being an assumption not driven by the premise "Let a = 2 and b = 2, so that a = b." ?