[FOM] Convincing math-blind people that math is different

Hendrik Boom hendrik at topoi.pooq.com
Sat Dec 27 12:24:42 EST 2014


On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 04:25:05PM +0000, Tennant, Neil wrote:
> Timothy Chow wrote:
>
> despite being "math-blind", the people in this thought experiment 
> have some appreciation of the 'hardness of the logical must'.

Perhaps the math-blind instead have learned the softness of the "must".  
The world is full of exceptions.

Perhaps the essence of math is that it creates concepts that are 
sufficiently precise, sharp, and exception-free that one *can* follow 
long chains of deductions to arrive at reliable conclusions.

Might it be possible to explain this to those who are math-blind?

-- hendrik


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