On top of that, understanding math can be a bit of a mystical experience, if I can say that in such magickal company. Instead of being steadily rewarded with effort, you end up staring at incomprehensibe symbols and concepts until suddenly the meaning becomes clear and somehow "obvious".
I certainly agree with this. I have many memories of sitting in abstract algebra (groups and rings) and staring at the board thinking, "I'm not sure what the hell is going on here," but then, at some point it simply clicks. It is like you are staring at some icon, glyph, or otherwise religious/symbolic image when all of a sudden your mind "flips" and something is now there where before there was only incomprehension. This seems to me to be the way of mathematics, mysticism, and magick (and perhaps the way the mind functions in general). As a friend of mine told me (regarding magick), we often find things difficult to understand, but suddenly, we turn around and it is so easy, and we then see how simple it has always been. I remeber feeling this way about derivatives (or was it integrals?--both?) in calculus. Made zero sense at first, but once it clicks it is as easy as pi(e).
Now part of the concern I see expressed above is that of attempts made to somehow justify or otherwise bolster positions that are "non-scientific" by importing mathematics (or other scintific claims) into the argument. Certainly this is a shady practice. My own view is very much like SMatthewStolte's, "Using mathematics outside the domain of pure math must always be regarded as an analogy, and not as an undeniable fact." (I'd like to add that, personally, I feel there are no "undeniable facts," but merely facts that, for whatever reasons, we are less willing to consider as fictions). However, I see nothing wrong with forcing (haha--mathematical analogy!) certain structures of knowledge into functional mappings with other structures of knowledge. For me, being highly sceptical of any claims to universal truth, all systems of knowledge are what they are in and of themselves, but the actual structures themselves cannot be claimed to be true or false. Mathematics is, Quatum mechanics is, Relativity is, and Hebrew is. These are all examples of language games which opperate by their own rules; however, the rules themselves are neither true or false. So, I allow myself to combine and recombine language games while bearing in mind that nothing that comes out of any of this leads to knowledge that is any more or less "true" than the knowledge generated by the rules within the original structures. Does this make any sense to anyone?
I think (I hope), that what I said above goes towards answering Fist of Fun's strong disagreament with what I originally said. But allow me to expand on the idea a little. I tend to agree that tautologies, outside the UD where they exist as tautologies, become something else; however, in another sense, I feel that everything is equivalent to everything else; that is, in the way that I interpret the world (in the UD that I exist within) things are, in some sense, a unity. Again, the truth/certainty of a mathematical equivalence is only that way inside its domain, but outside it becomes metaphor/analogy, but in a still deeper sense, it remains tautological and/or remains metaphorical. However, here I run into a paradox in my own thought where I cannot accept my interpretation as certainly or absolutely true; that is, I always have to keep in mind that this is merely the way I choose to interpret reality, and not the way reality is. I suppose that this might be seen as somewhat Kantian (maybe?): there is a universal truth, but we are forever closed off from reaching it. Boo-hoo.
Finally (and perhaps this is why some people feel the need to tell me to "grow up"), I tend to feel that life is about fun and play--but not childish or adolescent fun--it is play that is engaged in with sincerity and seriouness (another paradox?). Why not create patterns and let them dance? Why not look for deeper or novel meanings? Why not allow ourselves the freedom to mix blue with yellow to get green? We only have a short time here on this earth, and instead of troubling ourselves with searching for an "absolute truth," which I feel we cannot reach, why not merely dance and play with the ways in which we interpret the multitude of expressions of this "hidden" truth?
But I suppose I've gone off quite far from the original topic...
Sigh.
"'Cause your mornings will be brighter: break the lines and tear up rules--make the most of a million times no."
~Bauhus
"Live the life you love, use a god you trust, and don't take it all too seriously."
~Love & Rockets |
