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by zeeboo 3357 days ago
If I start at 0 and successively add 1, do you agree that I eventually hit any positive integer you could pick after a finite number of steps? Does that not prove to you that I hit every positive integers? Which one do I not hit?
1 comments

You will only eventually hit any given integer after finite steps. It does not prove you will hit every positive integer. You'll miss those that one never can finish giving you -- for example, I'll start with digit 1, and I'll infinitely adding 1 behind it (never finishing). It is an infinite natural number that you can't hit within any finite number of steps.
The game itself is certainly not the proof that is required. The proof in question is a proof that the game cannot be won by the adversary. By no means do you need to play all possible rounds of the game to conclude this.
The discussion really helps me understand the problem. Real numbers are infinity in disguise. Because infinity is not really defined, real numbers are not really defined. Just saying infinity is not finite does not make much sense (in the sense of adding anything helpful). Any real number that you can finitely describe can be included in a finitely described counting scheme. Let's use the counting schemes of rational numbers, I'll hit arbitrary numbers to arbitrary precisions. Taking a limit, it is not clear that I miss any numbers (including pi). To defeat this scheme, the adversary has to keep adding digits to his real number, as well as keep shrinking his allowed precision infinitely. Now both the number (that is being infinitely being described) and my counting process is infinite, we didn't and can't prove anything. There is simply no conclusions to be drawn.