Comment by BSEdlMMldESB | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BSEdlMMldESB | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

math describes (fragments) of reality;

therefore it is of no consequence if math as itself is "real" or not. it is intended to model whatever "real" even is.

somewhat similarly: in modern logical theories whatever "true" (and/including "false") even mean doesn't matter. is left out of the logical theory and it is effectively a mere parameter.

all the subject does is gurantee "truth in, truth out" (and complementarily "false in, false out")

the precise details of true "and/including" false, seems to me, are somewhere in the boundary between "classical" and "intuitionism" (or "constructivism")

the subtle distinction between intuitionism" and "constructivism" is above my pay grade (and seemingly above the paygrade of everybody I've had the chance of discussing this with)

> math describes (fragments) of reality;

This is only possible if math itself is real. Note that I am not saying that a particular axiom system like Euclidean geometry has some sort of "real physical manifestation". No, what I am saying is that logical reasoning itself is real. And our reasoning about logical reasoning is certainly real as well, even if logical reasoning itself happens in very abstract form. Math itself might be viewed by some as just a game of symbols. But that doesn't change the fact that the game itself is real. Would it be otherwise, then math would be about as important as chess.

I like to draw a distinction between real and ideal.

I insist that math is ideal. it models reality ideally.

this distinction is important because otherwise we mix together something, and the ideas and concepts (e.g. symbols and rules) we use to describe and model said something.

the game is not real. people playing the game are real, the game getting played is real. the game on its own as may be described in symbols is ideal.

i suppose what it all is all about is the intersection between this reality and this ideality.

You can say that a certain axiom system models a certain part of reality in an ideal way. But whatever is ideal, is also real, because otherwise there is nothing that could model anything. So your intersection of reality and ideality is just ideality itself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com