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dmfdmf | 5 days ago

Yes, you can call it "finitist" if you like but that is an error too. Define "exist".

Not "most" but all real numbers are similar to Pi, i.e. they are symbols that stand for an infinite process to calculate a rational number. Both irrational numbers like Pi, e, etc. and reals exists and are legit and useful math concepts but infinite precision does not exist "in the wild" only in your mind as an abstraction. In any actual calculation or measurement your infinite series must stop and the dedekind cut must be made.

The ghost of departed quantities still haunts math. Is Pi 3.14 or 3.1416? Mathematically, it is neither and both because math intentionally abstracts from the precision of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. These open-ended (infinite) processes are ultimately used to define a rational number, a ratio of integers.The finitist -vs- infinitist is a false binary which ignore that actual measurement must use rational numbers.

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