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This is the reason I prefer the intuitionist view of mathematics vs the more common platonic view. Something as simple as the Pythagorean theorem is true becaus
by DrDroop 3y ago
This is the reason I prefer the intuitionist view of mathematics vs the more common platonic view. Something as simple as the Pythagorean theorem is true because it has found so many ways to solve practical problems, the Sumerians and Egyptians basically worshiped that formula.
- BalinKing 3y agoI really don't think that intuitionism has that much to do with practical application—rather, it's a view about what it means for something to be "true" in the first place. That is to say, whether an intuitionist accepts a piece of mathematics is not contingent on if it has any practical applications. I suppose one could argue that something proven in an intuitionistic manner would have a higher probability of being practically useful (since it could e.g. be extracted into an algorithm), but IMO any such correlation is pretty weak.