Re: [xmca] In what sense(s) is mathematics a social construction.?

[Ng Foo Keong <lefouque@gmail.com>]

so are you saying that the different forms / brands of maths
(small 'm') of different traditions/civilisations are just
human maps of _The_ Mathematics (big 'm')?

"The maps are not the territory", right?

is there a magic Book, Somewhere Up There, where we can download
all the maths that humans need, and maybe download instant
understanding of maths, so children (and adults) are spared
the pain of trying to work out their understanding of maths?

F.K.


2009/5/1 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>:
> Eric,
> the cosmos existed without humans and will exist after us. But we invented
> physics, and fairly recently at that. Physics (like mathes) is a human
> practice, practiced in a certain community of practice (institutions,
> procedures), using a certain range of artefacts (symbols, words, apparatus).
>
> That the material from which artefacts are made and the object of hte
> enquiry exists independently of human activity does not prove that the
> activity itself exists without humans.
>
> *All* artefacts and forms of activity rest upon a natural world which exists
> independently of us. Our practice is constrained by nature, always, and is
> never in that sense capricious. I think I can fly ... but I still come
> crashing to the ground. Same with maths.
>
> Andy
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