There are tons of women who enjoy the damsel in distress trope and think it’s harmless fun.

There are also tons of women who think it perpetuates sexist stereotypes against women.

Both groups of women’s opinions are equally valid.

Does this not prove that the statement is independent?

  • jannaultheal@lemmy.worldOP
    28·
    1 day ago

    I mean in the same way that the continuum hypothesis is independent of ZFC. Godel constructed a model of ZFC where it’s true, and Cohen constructed a model where it’s false. We now have two models, both equally valid and satisfying all the axioms of ZFC, but in one, CH is true and in the other, CH is false, proving that CH is independent of ZFC.

    Likewise, we can find one woman who enjoys the damsel in distress trope and think it’s harmless fun, and we can find another women who thinks it perpetuates sexist stereotypes against women. Just like in the case above, we have two women, whose views are equally valid, but coming to opposite conclusions. Therefore, we can conclude, just like Godel and Cohen did, that the statement about damsels in distress is independent of the axioms.

    • woop_woop@lemmy.world
      12·
      1 day ago

      As a layman who had to look up half that bullshit, I think you’re coming across something much simpler that cant and shouldn’t be solved by one of your theorems: people are different and think different things. With beliefs, there are many truths.

      • jannaultheal@lemmy.worldOP
        16·
        1 day ago

        I think it goes deeper than that. There are people who disagree with the axiom of choice, finitists who disagree with the axiom of infinity, etc. But it’s a proven theorem (not independent) that ZFC proves the existence of uncountably infinite sets, non-measurable sets, etc. On the other hand, ZFC doesn’t prove nor disprove CH.

        So it’s much deeper than merely “people are different and think different things”.

        • woop_woop@lemmy.world
          12·
          1 day ago

          I think you’ve got that backwards. “People are different and think different things” is the constant and the rest of what’s you’re drilling into is an attempt to discover the pattern in it.

          So let’s go Socratic: why are you asking this?

          • jannaultheal@lemmy.worldOP
            15·
            1 day ago

            I want to understand why some women seem to enjoy movies and video games that use the damsel in distress trope, despite knowing that in feminist theory it’s often considered harmful. I realized that Godel and Cohen proved a very similar result and wonder if their techniques can be applied here as well

            Actually, now that I think of it, we can add axioms to ZFC that decide CH. For example, V=L implies it’s true, and proper forcing axioms imply that it’s false. Can we also add additional axioms to decide whether or not the damsel in distress trope is harmless fun, or sexist against women?

            • woop_woop@lemmy.world
              14·
              1 day ago

              The answer is that people of any demographic are not homogeneous and will have different beliefs and values. Your question is too high level to go any deeper than that. The rest of the nonsense you’re couching it behind is useless. People are people. Sonder.

              • jannaultheal@lemmy.worldOP
                12·
                1 day ago

                Yes but I still think it goes deeper than that. Are there any axioms that can decide the statement about damsels in distress, just like how axioms can be added to ZFC that decide CH, like V=L and proper forcing axioms as I pointed out?

                • solrize@lemmy.ml
                  1·
                  14 hours ago

                  Really no, any logic in the real world that has anything to say about damsels in distress is going to be inconsistent, just like the real world is. Therefore it proves everything and has no indepdendent statements. Also, it will have second-order quantifiers so it won’t have that kind of proof theory. If you treat damsels in distress problems as something like knight-knave puzzles from logic, then sure, you can treat them mathematically. But that’s not so interesting.

                  There is an excellent book you might like, " Gödel’s Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse" by Torkel Franzén, that discusses various forms fo what you’re trying to do, and explains why it doesn’t make much sense in the end. It’s available from the usual places including pdf’s on the internet. Book review: https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/200703/rev-raatikainen.pdf