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Old 11-23-2005   #35 (permalink)
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Re: Math: Did we discover or create it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrotex
I disagree that mathematics is a "language". We only say things like that, and confuse ourselves in the process, because we have no abstract meta-word ((class)) to include 'mathematics' and 'German' as members. We try to cram 'mathematics' into the class of 'languages' and do ourselves a great disservice. When we speak of math as a 'language' on a par with German, we muddy the conversational waters. And we wind up making deductions about as worthless as "4 + 3 = 8".
Why is it so difficult to accept the fact that Mathematics is just a "language"? this isn't make it less relevant it just put it in it's right place. You say it yourself, the rules in the basics of mathematics are universal and so they are discovred by humains from nature. we create mathemaics (as a language) to represent thoses rules because the existings ones were and still messy ones. If you look at all other science, you will see a lot of formulas represented by only one language : mathematics. It's just a specialised language that we use to represent facts discovred by other experimental sciences.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrotex
When we speak of math as a 'language' on a par with German, we muddy the conversational waters. And we wind up making deductions about as worthless as "4 + 3 = 8".
This is true if you write theses sentences as a humain language (German or others) but it it can't be worthless in mathematical words because it might be a deduction from rules. So it's just a deduction nothing else...
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