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people seem to ask this question a lot and honestly i’ve never really understood it. when you play tic-tac-toe you learn that perfect play is a draw. that’s a mathematical fact you can prove. does it “come from” somewhere? i dunno! what does that mean?

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pendertif

@pendertif

· Aug 3, 2021

Replying to @QiaochuYuan

Where does math come from anyway? The harmonic series is to music notation as ???? math

6:51 AM · Aug 3, 2021Twitter for iPad

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

Aug 3, 2021

Replying to

@QiaochuYuan

if someone thinks they understand what the question is asking i’d really genuinely appreciate it, iirc it crops up all the time, alongside “is math discovered or invented” (short answer: people invent rules to games and then discover good and bad strategies for those games)

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

Aug 3, 2021

hmm okay here is what i'm hearing so far: it sounds like the real question is something about the correspondence between mathematics and reality. why is math so good at describing reality, what makes that correspondence work, something like that?

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

Aug 3, 2021

i don't think i have a good answer to that off the top of my head. it's mostly something i ignored when i was doing math but it's a good question. will maybe let it percolate in the background for a bit. hmm