Jon Johanning wrote:
>
>> -- What kind of mathematics will result if the reality of a number is
>> given simply by our ability to represent something as a possible
>> number. For example, what kind of number is x in the equation x = the
>> square root of (-1)? Is it a number like 1, 2, 3 .... is a number?
>
>
> It's i, a perfectly good number in the mathematics we have. Look,
> Joanna, I appreciate your efforts, but you haven't come up with an
> alternative to mathematics, because there is *only* mathematics. I
> have to run now, so catch you later.
You may accept integer arithmetic as a subset of mathematics, but I am saying that there were philosophers who rejected the superset you call mathematics as mathematics. My various examples were offered to suggest that neither numbers nor mathematics are neutral....though after a solid five hundred years of being taught that this is so, many of us think this is so.
I would not call myself a post-modernist and I do not think that questioning the absolute truth of our sciences or mathematics makes me one. We count and we measure; this helps us do certain things and prevents us from understanding other things. That's all.
Joanna