I’m way overthinking this, but I’m going with finite. It could be an unfathomably large number, but gender is a human construct and there are a finite number of humans. Let’s say each human that ever lives has a unique gender identity - there could be billions or trillions, but it would still be finite.
Countries have been trying gamification and incentivization to increase birth rates, when they should have been appealing to our pedantic impulses all along.
I thought something similar, but the human brain is finite, so I don’t think a single person could have an uncountably infinite gender; unfathomably large, maybe, but it would still be finite.
Edit: I’m not trying to be bigoted here. If someone does identify that way I don’t want to discredit your identity.
I’m no mathematician, but I don’t think that’s how it works. A quick Google says there are 100 billion neurons. So you would have 100000000000! possible combinations, unfathomably large, but finite. Granted, a human brain is more complex than the configuration of neurons, but I don’t know how it becomes infinite.
yeah, but the relative positions and relative lengths and relative widths and relative densities and relative conductivities of those neurons are real numbers
I fucking love where this went, as I was thinking the exact same responses while reading this thread! Love it when a question about gender results in fundamental ideas surrounding mathematics and the nature of reality.
I was going to write up a similar argument, but does a gender exist if no one has it? Because then we might be able to “fill in the gaps” and get it to uncountably infinite.
I’m way overthinking this, but I’m going with finite. It could be an unfathomably large number, but gender is a human construct and there are a finite number of humans. Let’s say each human that ever lives has a unique gender identity - there could be billions or trillions, but it would still be finite.
but you could birth a new person who didn’t fit that finite number
there will always be a hypothetical new person who could exist
me, pedantically giving birth to a new child in order to prove the n+1 case
Countries have been trying gamification and incentivization to increase birth rates, when they should have been appealing to our pedantic impulses all along.
There are a finite amount of resources in the universe to make more humans.
but an infinite number of ways you could spend those resources
what about Genders Georg, who lives in a cave and has uncountably many genders all by xemself?
I thought something similar, but the human brain is finite, so I don’t think a single person could have an uncountably infinite gender; unfathomably large, maybe, but it would still be finite.
Edit: I’m not trying to be bigoted here. If someone does identify that way I don’t want to discredit your identity.
A single human brain is finite, but the possible configurations of neurons across any possible hypothetical brain is decidedly infinite.
I’m no mathematician, but I don’t think that’s how it works. A quick Google says there are 100 billion neurons. So you would have
100000000000!possible combinations, unfathomably large, but finite. Granted, a human brain is more complex than the configuration of neurons, but I don’t know how it becomes infinite.I’m also way past the point of overthinking this.
yeah, but the relative positions and relative lengths and relative widths and relative densities and relative conductivities of those neurons are real numbers
Now we are getting into the quantum physics question of if the universe is discrete or continuous. Which seems to be unsolved.
So I guess that’s my answer. If the universe is discrete then there are finite genders, and if it’s continuous then there could be infinite genders.
I fucking love where this went, as I was thinking the exact same responses while reading this thread! Love it when a question about gender results in fundamental ideas surrounding mathematics and the nature of reality.
so at the very least, the lower bound is the natural numbers, or a countably infinite number
I was going to write up a similar argument, but does a gender exist if no one has it? Because then we might be able to “fill in the gaps” and get it to uncountably infinite.
Yeah, I got to that point in my thinking and then just gave up and posted my first thought.