Originally Posted by
littlejohn
Hi Brett,
This is a good post. If someone asks what math is good for, describing it as a useful tool is a great place to start. In fact, that is what I believe it is also. Something interesting happened to math that did not happen to other tools in the tool box; it became special.
One day, from someone's mouth came the words - "laws of mathematics." We did not get any word on the "laws of the hammer," or the "laws of the screw driver." We got a lot of laws from physics books, and every one of them was described in terms of math.
Thus, it is a great tool to use for solving, plus, you could also say it is a language assistant. Because all humans learn the same math, it can aid in communicating "meaning" between people. But it is not a language in itself - so back in the tool box you go Mr. Math.
What about those laws? Is it a government? Does it govern the way nature behaves? Nope. But it is a great and useful way to describe how natural things behave.
So, it is maybe, the crown jewel of our tool box. It can help you design, help you build, and help you describe what you built, help you communicate how much it costs, and keep track of how many you sell --- I don't know what we would have become (humans) without it.
So now I have to ask myself, since math seems to permeate all dimensions of our activities, is it the primary framework for how we think? It might be.
If so, then it is a very special thing, and perhaps now, Mr. Math can come out of the tool box. Nope. On his best day, Mr. Math can help us describe our perception of the primary framework for how we think, but cannot be that thing... its just symbols. Back in the box.
So Brett, I enjoyed sharing with you. Perhaps in the future we could talk about the last sentence of your post. The part about objects, and being real, and things like that. Sometimes that conversation more closely resembles quick sand than a conversation, but its usually worth it.
--LittleJohn