My philosphy told me to think of a way 2 plus 2 is 5 or any other number besides 5 where do i start?

Answer 1

Usually, you can use the "Parts become a whole strategy:

Examples - 2 layers of cake plus 2 layers of cake = 1 cake.
2 pair of aces plus two pair of aces = one set of aces.

But this cheating, using wordplay to justify the answer instead of philosophy or logic.

The better examples that are defensible without wordplay are:
A pair (2) + another pair (2) = 2 pair (my favorite)
2 holes + 2 holes = one hole
2 noises + 2 noises (at the same time) = 1 noise
2 knots + 2 knots (in the same place) = 1 knot
2 clouds + 2 clouds = 1 to 4 clouds
2 infinities + 2 infinities = 1 infinity (or infinity infinities)

Amazing how another reader hypocritically claims that any answer beside 2+2=4 is a false philosophy when that reader's own philosophy believes that 1+1+1=1 (Three gods = One god).

Answer 2

Start with arithmetic. It tells you that 2 + 2 = 4. Since 4 is a number other than 5, you have arrived at your goal of thinking of a way that 2 + 2 = a number besides 5.

Answer 3

You start with all of the assumptions in that statement. And there are a LOT of them.

What is two? Two of what? How do you add things? How do you count them? How do you tell one thing from another? Who is to be the arbiter of such things? What number system are you using?

You can attack ANY of these assumptions and get a different number than the standard mathematical one.

- Take two lumps of clay and two other lumps of clay and 'add' (smoosh) them together. How many do you have now? One.
- Use a number system with three digits instead of ten (base 3 or trinary). In this system, 2+2=11.
- Put two apples and two oranges in a basket. How many apples do you have? Two (2+2=2). How many peaches do you have? Zero (2+2=0). Or at a core level, you still have two apples and two oranges (2+2=2+2... irreducibly).
- Take the Taoist approach: if all things in the universe are just one underlying thing, then any number more than one is undefined (2+2 = impossible, or 1).

...and that's just to get you started. Hope that helps!

Answer 4

I think you mean your philosophy teacher told you to think of something... right?

If so then they are simply telling you to think of a way to take something which is normally viewed as being set in stone (such as your math problem) and find a way to look at it differently.

So what else is set in stone besides a math problem? Hmmm... How about saying that winning the lottery is a good thing! You are a millionaire... This is something that everybody would agree on.. Now find a way to convince somebody that this is not the only answer...

How about the old saying that, "Money is the root of all evil"???

You can come up with a million of these examples.

Good Luck.

Answer 5

Mathematics is a form of epistemology. It has its own rules. Never can 2+2=5, or the epistemology will mean nothing and no mathematical formula will ever be provable.

Answer 6

While I believe it's good to have philosophy, it is not good to base philosophy in untruths. If your philosophy is based in an untruth it has no foundation. Therefore the philosophy that 2+2=any other number other that 4 is a false philosophy.

False philosophies lead to shaky hypotheses.Shaky hypotheses ultimately lead to the spreading of opinion rather than truth.

Example: people who are of the opinion that the Bible isn't the Word of God started with the hypothsesis that the world came to be through their theory of evolution. The theory had many gaping holes in it, so rather than fill the holes with fact, they philosophied that it must be true so they used other theories to fill the gaps.

Answer 7

With a change of philosophy.

Before you can command reality, you must first learn to obey it.