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Beehaw decides: what is the set of all genders? (strawpoll.com)

submitted 3 months ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/askbeehaw@beehaw.org

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[–] jeff@programming.dev 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] polonius-rex@kbin.run 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

A single human brain is finite, but the possible configurations of neurons across any possible hypothetical brain is decidedly infinite.

[–] jeff@programming.dev 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] polonius-rex@kbin.run 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

yeah, but the relative positions and relative lengths and relative widths and relative densities and relative conductivities of those neurons are real numbers

[–] jeff@programming.dev 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] knokelmaat@beehaw.org 5 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] polonius-rex@kbin.run 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

so at the very least, the lower bound is the natural numbers, or a countably infinite number