[mod.ai] Mathematics and humanity

colonel@buffalo.CSNET ("Col. G. L. Sicherman") (11/07/86)

In <8611050753.AA24198@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, WADLISP7@CARLETON.BITNET writes:
 
> The inhumanity of *most* mathematics? I would think that from the rest of
> your message, what you would really claim is the inhumanity of *all*
> mathematics -- for *all* of mathematics is entirely deviod of the questions
> of what is morally right or morally wrong, entirely missing all matters of
> human relationships. Mathematical theorems start by listing the assumptions,
> and then indicating how those assumptions imply a result.

This is the specialized mathematician's view of mathematics.  The point is
obviously sound, because mathematicians study mathematics as a thing apart.
On the other hand, the mathematics that a herdsman uses to count sheep be-
longs to the herdsman's life.  It's not formally axiomatized, but it
is human, because it is bound up with the natural human activity of
growing food.

To reinforce the point, many unlettered herdsmen have special numbers
that they use _only_ for counting sheep.  One can feel that to use
those numbers for counting other things would be to endow those things
with an inappropriate character of sheepliness.  Modern mathematics
rests on ignoring such "human" distinctions.  The equals sign is the
sine qua non of abstract mathematics--but it does not exist in human
lives.

The cry of "art for art's sake" produced generations of starving artists.
What can we foresee from "math for math's sake?"