Conversation

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
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
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
Where does math come from anyway? The harmonic series is to music notation as ???? math
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
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?
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
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
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Michele
@chele_Murray
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
I think its the same question as "where does language come from?" It's a tool humans developed to describe things they observe. Over time, humans learned how to manipulate it to gain more knowledge. Same as language.
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ansatz
@ansatz6
One POV (via Wittgenstein): language is the result of the (social) process of telling stories to explain cause and effect. ‘Logic’ abstracts this process to only allow absolutely undeniable causes and effects. Pure math is the poetry (aesthetic) written in this language of logic
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Jack
@jackinlondon
Setup of games is arbitrary, but some of them reflect reality in a way that works and let us do great social things. Set up of math is arbitrary but some mathematics reflect reality in a way that works and lets us do great things.
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Alex Kreitzberg
@AlexKreitzberg
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
The more I learned how much logic depended on language, and how flexible language could be, the more confused I got over where reality ended and my mind began. Like, I don't think any circle definition I know is the "right" one, so what do I mean when I say "circle"?
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Prince Vogelfrei is in New York
@PrinceVogel
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
people are asking if the universe is made of math or not, or if maybe there's a seperate, transcendt world where math is. That's really it. It's ontological. It might also have something to do with a desire to know what rules genuinely underly mathematics
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