Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: The Philosopher who wrote (38091)	5/12/1999 3:23:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) of 108807

There is something special about math. Perhaps it comes from the simplicity of the rules of the game. Humans are good at playing with abstract idea structures. Math is a collection of such, and the only immutable rule I can find is one of internal consistency. Applying that rule of internal consistency, 2+2 is 4 each and every time. E helped me realize that my black hole jape was not numeric in nature, but metric. (This suggests a simple answer to Del's question of the seventeen objects. Break one of them into two...) It is one of the beautiful things about math, and especially its bedrock of arithmetic, geometry and algebra, that it does seem to be proof against premise swaps. The internal consistency requirement quickly disqualifies the impostors. I cannot prove this. But I suggest that if a separate, internally consistent math were conceivable, someone would have found it and described it. A lot of very bright people took a lot of very powerful drugs and spent some time thinking so far out of the box that a coffee cup and a doughnut WERE indistinguishable. :-)

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next