Attention Economy


Friday, February 9, 2024

The Spiritual Side of Mathematics

Math Is the Answer to More Than One Question
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/opinion/math-god-numbers.html
Alec Wilkinson:
Mathematicians have been finding suggestions of divinity in mathematics at least since Pythagoras, in the sixth century B.C. For many mathematicians, there is no question that God is somehow involved. Newton, for example, believed that mathematics exemplified thoughts in the mind of God.
A couple of simple mysteries, available to anyone, help explain why this might be so. The first is the question of whether mathematics is created or discovered. Some mathematicians believe that mathematics is a system invented by human beings and that it is shaped as it is by the tendencies of human beings toward particular types of thinking. This is a minority view. The majority believe that mathematics exists as if independently of human thought and that the discoveries that mathematicians make are a mapping of an independent and timeless territory, a sort of parallel world where nothing is good or evil but everything is true.
 
Related:
https://thatsmaths.com/2022/11/17/the-rich-legacy-of-indian-mathematics/