Top all-time · #7797
Steve Patterson
Personal blog · steve-patterson.comphilosophymathpolitics
Steve Patterson's personal blog at steve-patterson.com covers philosophy, math and politics. Since 2015, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 16 times, most often “Proof That Chairs Don't Exist”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-03-19, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Philosophy and logic posts on deduction versus induction, whether chairs exist, Buridan's ass paradox, and infinity. Commenters link them as related reading in threads on those topics.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Proof That Chairs Don't Exist2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-04-18
What Hacker News says?
Consider the contrast between these statements: "The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a reputable institution" "A triangle has three sides" "Governments, politicians and their bureaucrats are trustworthy" "Two parallel lines will never meet" http://steve-patterson.com/deduction-induction-and-axioms/
Comment linking /deduction-induction-and-axioms/
on “Consumer prices rose 8.5% in March – highest since 1981”Submitted Fewer Than 1000 Brits Googled “What Is the EU?” After Referendum as a story · 112 points
HN discussionChairs are also brought up in philosophical debacles: http://steve-patterson.com/no-chairs-do-not-exist/ The point seems to be close to what you describe, but not entirely: "chair" is a human-made label, assigned to physical objects in the real world, but it's too abstract. Lots of objects resembling a chair or named "chair" exist, each with their own peculiarities, features, identity, but that's just humans going a…
Comment linking /no-chairs-do-not-exist/
on “There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)”Submitted Postmodernism is Anti-Mind (Literally) as a story · 42 points
HN discussionNice paradox, searching about it found another proposed solution: http://steve-patterson.com/paradox-resolved-buridans-ass/ It says: "there’s no such thing as “identical options”. More specifically, there are no two separate things which are identical in every way. So when talking about choice, having “alternative” possibilities implies having “different” possibilities. We can not evaluate two things as both “identi…
Comment linking /paradox-resolved-buridans-ass/
on “Buridan's Principle (1984) [pdf]”Submitted Quantum Physics and the Abuse of Reason as a story · 38 points
HN discussionRelated work: https://steve-patterson.com/logic-and-infinity/
Comment linking /logic-and-infinity/
on “What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?”Submitted Does “Free Will” Even Make Sense? as a story · 13 points
HN discussionSubmitted Logic and Infinity: The Errors of Calculus as a story · 9 points
HN discussionSubmitted Is it Honorable to be in the Military? as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Proof That Chairs Don't Exist as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Liar's Paradox Resolved as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Metaphysics of Mathematics as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Proof of the Mind's Access to Objective Truth as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Everything is Grounded in Logic as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Resolving the Liar’s Paradox as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
