🚀 go-pugleaf

Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
> 
> msn...@mindspring.com (Michael Snider) writes:
> 
> >On 11 Jun 1997 14:28:31 GMT, wo...@berlin.snafu.de (Wolfgang Schwanke)
> >wrote:
> 
> >>Daniel J Adams <daniel@fuck.off.spammers> writes:
> >>
> >>>I fail to get your point. There was nothing saying that there were 17
> >>>trees in the forest before we learned to count but there were stil the-
> >>>concept-that-we-call-17 trees in the forest.
> >>
> >>You just got it :)
> >>Maybe it's a little more obvious when you realise that math is
> >>based on _arbitrary_ axioms and definitions (do we agree on that?).
> >>If they're arbitrary, they're not natural.
> >>
> >>The so-called "natural" numbers (who despite their name aren't)
> >>just happen to be _exremely_ intuitive, so they're a bad example
> >>to grasp. But how about such concepts as square roots, pi, or
> >>complex numbers? All invented.
> 
> >You've confused the name with the thing.  We invented the name "pi,"
> >but the relation of the circumference of a circle to its radius always
> >c = r2pi.
> 
> This is getting difficult you know.
> We did not only invent numbers, we also invented the concepts "circle",
> "radius" and equation for that matter, of which you just cited an example.
> Of course, once we have all these definitions, we can then play
> "discover the laws", but the laws depend on what you defined previously.
> 
> Greetings
> 
> wolfgang
> 
Yes, precisely!  Or, in other words: 

      THE SYMBOL IS NOT THE THING.

No matter how lovely a symbolic language mathematics is, 
it is not reality.  It is only the set of symbols we use 
to understand reality. 


Teinwyn