>I think the point was that mathematics relies on a small set of postulates from which you can derive everything else. And I agree, this is one of the assertio

>I think the point was that mathematics relies on a small set of postulates from which you can derive everything else. And I agree, this is one of the assertions my opponent has made. I did not go to refute it because, if not outright false, it's disingenuous. >Another way to put it is, learning the postulates for langx doesn't provide enough value for many to be worth doing. This is also true, same goes for everything else. I make money using C - I learn C's postulates. If somebody paid me to use topology - I'd learned topology postulates. What would be stupid if I were paid to use topology but said: "it's hard to learn and it makes no sense for me because I don't like mathematics and don't know any other math discipline so why would I all of sudden learn topology's postulate when I can copy formulas from the net and ask questions on manifoldoverflow.com?"