🚀 go-pugleaf

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.  Our particular means of expression are invented, but the
relations are there in the world, sometimes, as was the case with
non-Euclidean geometries, even when we thought we were only playing
games.

Michael