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Western mathematics: the secret weapon of cultural imperialism

7 points by fforflo 11y ago

dawnbreez 11y ago
Tl;dr: We are horrible people for having our own abstractions for measuring angles, lengths, etc., and we should've let everyone invent their own system. If we did so, we would have better multiculturism now at the cost of making all forms of physics, electronics, and engineering an absolute nightmare. If one man's measure of length does not convert cleanly to another's, then they won't get any work done, because they won't know how long the bridge's posts should be. If a degree is 1/360th of a circle to one man, and 1/200th of a circle to another, the 45 degrees varies wildly between the two, and once more nothing gets done. The list goes on.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  If even mathematics becomes subject to PC nonsense... well, time to close up shop and head home, we had a good run. Eventually the idea that some Party will announce that two plus two makes five will stop seeming like dystopian fiction and start looking realistic.
  - dawnbreez 11y ago
    As this article suggests, it's more likely that they'll push for the use of "traditional ____ units", which will be completely arbitrary, especially since most of the people who knew what these units were are long dead. Converting between them will be a nightmare, and if people start demandimg that, say, all buildings for African-Americans be measured in units used by the Zulu tribes, it'll cause even more divides between white workers ("Why can't we just use feet?") and black workers ("This measurement is my heritage, why don't you want to use it?") This will, of course, be attributed to racism, because scapegoats are useful for such things.
xlm1717 11y ago
There are so many things to pick apart in this paper: "But where do ’degrees’ come from? Why is the total 180? Why not 200, or 100? Indeed, why are we interested in triangles and their properties at all? The answer to all these questions is, essentially, ’because some people determined that it should be that way’." The author briefly touches upon Euclidean geometry and offering alternate geometries, but seemingly forgot that (western) mathematicians have been considering non-Euclidean geometry for at least a couple hundred years. We have rigorous answers on why a triangle is 180 degrees in Euclidean geometry and why it can be more or less in other geometries. We might not be teaching this in primary school (because it can get complicated), but math majors learn this stuff all the time. It's not just that "some people determined that it should be that way." Many people determined the many different ways it could be through things like logic and reasoning (which the author also attacks). "For example, we are now aware of the fact that many different counting systems exist in the world." We were always aware? The classical example that comes up even in primary school is how the Babylonians used base 60 and connecting that to 60 minutes in an hour. Mathematicians are well aware of different counting systems. Indeed they even use number systems based on irrational numbers, like e, when it makes formulas easier to use. "Facts like these challenge fundamental assumptions and long-held beliefs about mathematics." These are being challenged by mathematicians themselves all the time. Principia Mathematica anyone? Godel's incompleteness theorems anyone? After reading that paper, I think the author's mistake was considering that small sliver of mathematics that is taught in primary school, and not considering the enormous field that exists and is accessible only after many years in college/university. At least at one point the author does concede that multiple cultures contribute to mathematics (Arabic/Indian numerals that we use today being the most visible examples), not just "western" culture, and that many mathematicians around the world would object to what is essentially the politicization of mathematics, but then the author considers these objections irrelevant to the point he's trying to make. In fact, the author then goes on to call teaching advanced mathematics "elitist", and even attacks rationality and how we dare use inductive reasoning over intuition... what?? The kind of mental gymnastics needed to accept most of the arguments made in this paper... well, you won't have much mental energy to do actual math after dealing with that much cognitive dissonance.
cafard 11y ago
Hey, "Arabic" numerals are finally conquering Roman numerals at the Super Bowl. Take heart!
lazyant 11y ago
Author is confusing Mathematics with some subjective representations like using decimal vs another number base or the arbitrary 360 degrees in a circle, that by the way is not western, it comes from Egypt or some Middle-East culture, can't remember now (and we also use the non-arbitrary 2*pi angle), Math won't change by changing such representations. We have International System units and Imperial measurement units and science is the same regardless of what units you use. Other ideas of "space time" or whatever of some cultures, well, they need to be formalized and expressed properly so see if they have any real value beyond the verbal idea, that's how math and science works.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
daodedickinson 11y ago
Sometimes my brain automatically searches and replaces "imperialism" with "excellence" and "elitist" with "excellent", but this title still doesn't make sense because there's nothing made secret about "Western" math, just people envying to learn it with less effort.

7 points by fforflo 11y ago

Tl;dr: We are horrible people for having our own abstractions for measuring angles, lengths, etc., and we should've let everyone invent their own system. If we did so, we would have better multiculturism now at the cost of making all forms of physics, electronics, and engineering an absolute nightmare. If one man's measure of length does not convert cleanly to another's, then they won't get any work done, because they won't know how long the bridge's posts should be. If a degree is 1/360th of a circle to one man, and 1/200th of a circle to another, the 45 degrees varies wildly between the two, and once more nothing gets done. The list goes on.

xlm1717 11y ago
If even mathematics becomes subject to PC nonsense... well, time to close up shop and head home, we had a good run. Eventually the idea that some Party will announce that two plus two makes five will stop seeming like dystopian fiction and start looking realistic.
- dawnbreez 11y ago
  As this article suggests, it's more likely that they'll push for the use of "traditional ____ units", which will be completely arbitrary, especially since most of the people who knew what these units were are long dead. Converting between them will be a nightmare, and if people start demandimg that, say, all buildings for African-Americans be measured in units used by the Zulu tribes, it'll cause even more divides between white workers ("Why can't we just use feet?") and black workers ("This measurement is my heritage, why don't you want to use it?") This will, of course, be attributed to racism, because scapegoats are useful for such things.

xlm1717 11y ago

There are so many things to pick apart in this paper: "But where do ’degrees’ come from? Why is the total 180? Why not 200, or 100? Indeed, why are we interested in triangles and their properties at all? The answer to all these questions is, essentially, ’because some people determined that it should be that way’." The author briefly touches upon Euclidean geometry and offering alternate geometries, but seemingly forgot that (western) mathematicians have been considering non-Euclidean geometry for at least a couple hundred years. We have rigorous answers on why a triangle is 180 degrees in Euclidean geometry and why it can be more or less in other geometries. We might not be teaching this in primary school (because it can get complicated), but math majors learn this stuff all the time. It's not just that "some people determined that it should be that way." Many people determined the many different ways it could be through things like logic and reasoning (which the author also attacks). "For example, we are now aware of the fact that many different counting systems exist in the world." We were always aware? The classical example that comes up even in primary school is how the Babylonians used base 60 and connecting that to 60 minutes in an hour. Mathematicians are well aware of different counting systems. Indeed they even use number systems based on irrational numbers, like e, when it makes formulas easier to use. "Facts like these challenge fundamental assumptions and long-held beliefs about mathematics." These are being challenged by mathematicians themselves all the time. Principia Mathematica anyone? Godel's incompleteness theorems anyone? After reading that paper, I think the author's mistake was considering that small sliver of mathematics that is taught in primary school, and not considering the enormous field that exists and is accessible only after many years in college/university. At least at one point the author does concede that multiple cultures contribute to mathematics (Arabic/Indian numerals that we use today being the most visible examples), not just "western" culture, and that many mathematicians around the world would object to what is essentially the politicization of mathematics, but then the author considers these objections irrelevant to the point he's trying to make. In fact, the author then goes on to call teaching advanced mathematics "elitist", and even attacks rationality and how we dare use inductive reasoning over intuition... what?? The kind of mental gymnastics needed to accept most of the arguments made in this paper... well, you won't have much mental energy to do actual math after dealing with that much cognitive dissonance.

cafard 11y ago

Hey, "Arabic" numerals are finally conquering Roman numerals at the Super Bowl. Take heart!

lazyant 11y ago

Author is confusing Mathematics with some subjective representations like using decimal vs another number base or the arbitrary 360 degrees in a circle, that by the way is not western, it comes from Egypt or some Middle-East culture, can't remember now (and we also use the non-arbitrary 2*pi angle), Math won't change by changing such representations. We have International System units and Imperial measurement units and science is the same regardless of what units you use. Other ideas of "space time" or whatever of some cultures, well, they need to be formalized and expressed properly so see if they have any real value beyond the verbal idea, that's how math and science works.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

daodedickinson 11y ago

Sometimes my brain automatically searches and replaces "imperialism" with "excellence" and "elitist" with "excellent", but this title still doesn't make sense because there's nothing made secret about "Western" math, just people envying to learn it with less effort.