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"Falsifiability" is generally understood in terms of physical observations. Mathematics is ultimately tautological: they are true or false by their own definiti
by jfengel 9d ago
"Falsifiability" is generally understood in terms of physical observations. Mathematics is ultimately tautological: they are true or false by their own definition, without reference to the physical world.
It just so happens that certain kinds of mathematics are unreasonably effective in drawing parallels to the physical world, but as far as mathematicians are concerned those mathematics are neither better nor worse than those that do not correspond to anything tangible.
- deleted 9d ago[deleted]
- brobdingnagians 8d agoFor GH Hardy, the more useless the maths is, the better and more beautiful it is.
- fn-mote 8d ago> those mathematics are neither better nor worse than those that do not correspond to anything tangible. A sweeping generalization. I certainly know professional mathematicians who disagree. Also: many consider “inter-connectedness”, not “tangible” to be a sign that a topic is interesting. That is, it touches branches of mathematics aside from its own.