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Replying to and
You just laid out the best case for math investment. Math is the best way to occupy your own headspace and prevent that kind of Straussian pwnage by other minds 🙂 Even famous mathematicians can’t occupy your head because to understand what they did you have to redo it yourself
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I think a crux issue between math and organized religion is rhetoric strategies. In organized religion you typically appeal to faith or authority (zen etc. notwithstanding) In math you're on your own to derive Truth yourself, but there's others who went on the journey before u
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Crucially, in the latter, it’s easy to fool yourself that you’re being persuaded by “logic” when in fact you’re being persuaded by charismatic authority. The main value of math is that it’s easier to do the actual work than to fool yourself that you get it when you don’t.
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Replying to and
I never took Intro to Proofs in undergrad so I tend to hedge epistemically that I'm delusional. I think what makes me and many others an "engineer" is we need a constructive proof that we know something, and making something is typically am effective demonstration of knowledge.
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