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Almost all of modern mathematics is not about numbers, although a lot of the objects studied can eventually be related to numbers in some way.
by eigenket 5y ago
Almost all of modern mathematics is not about numbers, although a lot of the objects studied can eventually be related to numbers in some way.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoIt's not about numbers, but it's built on concepts which wouldn't exist without numbers as a foundational abstraction. There may be entire categories of representational concepts which we abstract poorly, or don't abstract at all, or possibly don't perceive at all - because from our point of view the relationships are so complex and remote they're effectively invisible.
- darkscape 5y agoI've been thinking about this since I read about the Pirahã people. The concept of number enables engineering and business (accounting) (and perhaps timekeeping). Someone unfamiliar with numbers would find it very difficult to function in modern society and a group of such people wouldn't build modern civilization (unless they discovered numbers, which someone did at some point, of course). Now, here's an example of my crazy dream: imagine the possibility of currently inaccessible ways of perceiving or thinking, that, if they were to become available, would enable a four year old child to gain an understanding of, for example, elementary particle physics from zero to phd level in mere minutes. Of course, that way of thinking might be so different that said understanding might make no use of (our current) mathematics or the concept of elementary particle at all.