3 + 3 = 6

Wednesday, 14 April, Year 13 d.Tr. | Author: Mircea Popescu

That's not math.

You realise this, do you ? Oneplusoneequalstwo has nothing to do with math whatsoever, it's about as arithmetic as business cards. Those also have numbers on them. And signs !!11!

The elementary addition table, showing the arbitrary array of symbols you've arbitrarily drafted into representing underlying mathematical reality to your crummy senses is alli axiomatic. There's no substantial difference between 1 + 1 = 2 and 1 + 1 = 3 or / 3 / 7 =ii for that matter! As long as you stick to unambiguous usage any symbol's just as good as any other, and altogether perfect at the task of... signifying. Which is mere representation, it does not involve the thing represented to any degree. If some day someone tells you I said you're a cuckster doofus, that has nothing to do with me. It's a representation of what I said, not what I actually said ; and the same's true for Math.

Once the entire pile-up of 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 1 = 3 ; 3 + 1 = 4 and so on given (and along with it the conventional decimal notation, whereby 179 = 1 * 102 + 7 * 101 + 9 * 100, just like polynomial standard form exactly), then -- and only then! -- do certain mathematical truths take over, and extremely reliable predictions can be made, for instance such as to whether the bag with 4`563 + 1`446 beads in it will have more beads in it than the boat with 3`336 + 2`950 slaves in it has slaves in it (to the standard of, if every slave's given a bead, will there be beads leftover or beadles slaves to be thrown overboard briefly leftover). Until such a time, however... it's not that "there's no math", of course not ; but there's no math for you.

That's all I had to say.

———
  1. Not exactly all, the structure's fundamentally math ; but the skins stretched on that underwire, now those are perfectly indifferent (to math, I mean ; to you they matter immensely as supports for that one vainest of all conceits). []
  2. If instead of "1" you used "/" to denote the same thing and similarily [what is now known as] + was written down as "3" or = as "7"... exactly nothing would change. Perhaps not even keyboard positions. []
Category: Trilenciclopedia
Comments feed : RSS 2.0. Leave your own comment below, or send a trackback.

3 Responses

  1. The philosophical damage heaped upon the modern mini-student's psyche by rampant mishandling of these basic --and somehow extraordinarily occult!-- notions is immense. I think this meshes with the common "we won't instruct you how to wash; you should just know and besides telling you might be embarrassing" malversations.

  2. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    2
    Mircea Popescu 
    Friday, 16 April 2021

    That's for damn sure.

  3. 3+3=6

Add your cents! »
    If this is your first comment, it will wait to be approved. This usually takes a few hours. Subsequent comments are not delayed.