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To: Reily

Not necessarily, any more than language might have been invented primarily to tell people the best place to fish but now has rich fullness and seemingly endless stream of properties and structure.

Non-Euclidian geometries, to me, suggests that math is our servant, not our master. When we use math to model reality as we experience it, it’s useful. If we devise other mathematical structures, no matter how interesting, they aren’t useful (except maybe as art).

I could be missing something, but that’s what I see.


53 posted on 11/05/2015 12:04:09 PM PST by ArGee (There are three types of liars. Liars, damned liars, and Clintons)
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To: ArGee

I view math as something much deeper then language. Languages come and go, there are no ‘linguistic truths’ that are say comparable to theorems (e.g., Fermat’s Last Theorem). Language may not even distinguish us from animals. Clearly there are examples of animals communicating, sharing information and there is structure in its make up. This discussion could go on for days but for myself I think there is more evidence for the Platonist interpretation. (I prefer to call it the Pythagorean interpretation! Why you may ask? Remember the Disney movie, ‘Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land’, the portrayal of Pythagoras & pals? I loved that! Those guys still give me a chuckle! I used to have a screen saver of that scene!)


61 posted on 11/05/2015 12:33:37 PM PST by Reily
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