Miranda Vernard (likeclockwork) wrote in the_bullpen,
@ 2010-02-15 17:31:00

Why do so many people act like higher mathematics is frightening or inhuman? Math is a human creation, after all; and it's beautiful.

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	lantern_kid 2010-02-16 03:37 pm UTC (link)
	Math wasn't created by humans. Math is a universal constant. That's like saying gravity was invented by that Newton guy. But that's beside the point. Math is annoying is what it is. So much easier to have a calculator. (Reply to this)(Thread)

likeclockwork
2010-02-16 08:17 pm UTC (link)

'God made the integers, all else is the work of man.' Just because it's universally true doesn't mean that on the higher levels we aren't playing by rules we made up ourselves. And actually, gravity was invented by that Newton guy. Those were his rules to describe what happens; they aren't universally true but they were terribly useful and a very good job.

::smiles:: I did say 'higher mathematics', not 'arithmatic'. Show me a calculator that can prove the Hodge conjecture. Do you think humanity first accessed the microverse or made unstable molecules or traveled through time from the kind of equations that can be crunched mechanically?

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	lantern_kid 2010-02-16 09:17 pm UTC (link)
	::points to the ring on his finger with a grin:: Ring, can you calculate these things? //Affirmative.// (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

likeclockwork
2010-02-16 09:23 pm UTC (link)

::blinks, then stares, then raises eyebrow:: Unless that thing is fully sentient on its own -- in which case it would be a person and my point still stands -- whatever civilization or organization produced it had to at some point figure out projective complex manifolds and such for themselves before they could program it to understand them. Somebody, at some point, still had to do all the work.

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	lantern_kid 2010-02-16 09:25 pm UTC (link)
	::shrug:: A little above my pay grade. But maybe I should introduce you to Dkrtzy RRR. He's one of the Green Lanterns, but he's a bio-sentient mathematical equation. He might have something to say about math being a human invention... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	likeclockwork 2010-02-16 09:34 pm UTC (link)
	A pleasure, and on that I will stand corrected on my choice of phrasing, which was meant to contrast with 'inhuman'. I should have said sentient beings. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lantern_kid 2010-02-16 09:37 pm UTC (link)
	Well, then it gets into questions like if all of reality was invented by our own perceptions, but that's a little too Eastern Philosophy for me. I prefer to stick with the Kama Sutra. wink (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	likeclockwork 2010-02-17 12:10 am UTC (link)
	I'm not suggesting that '2+2=4' is a matter of subjective individual opinion, but -- ::blinks:: Do you always take the conversation there that fast? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lantern_kid 2010-02-17 12:15 am UTC (link)
	What? To eastern philosophy? Not too often. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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