Philosophy and Math

Ah, here we are at the end of another week. I really enjoyed this look at math; it's given me a few new perspectives on math and systems of knowing.

3. Why is the study of mathematics considered to be the equivalent of the study of pure philosophy? What characteristics do they share in common?

Math and philosophy both seek truth. Math is based upon simple statements and presuppositions, as is philosophy. Both systems build upon those statements to come to new theories. The only real difference is math makes a whole lot more sense and is a lot easier to use.

5. Dr. Priest indicated that he believes math to be discovered, not invented or created. What did he mean by this? Being that, as indicated in the reading, a lot of mathematics is applicable to things in the physical world, what are some conclusions that we can reach following Dr. Priest's line of thought?

I believe Dr. Priest meant that math isn't invented because it always existed. Our knowledge becomes more complete and extensive as we discover more math and more ways to apply it, but we did not create it. If we extended this idea, we could say that nothing is really invented, we just discover ways of using what we already have. Of course this assumes that there is some absolute truth separate from our knowledge, this could get really nasty if we didn't make that assumption. . . .

(I didn't want to do the first problem because of how easy it is, but I'm more mathematician than writer, so here it is.)

1. if n is any integer and 2(n) is even and 2(n) +1 is odd:
the product of two odd numbers is odd because (2n+1)(2n+1) = 4n^2 +2n = 2(2n^2 +2n) + 1
and the sum of two odd numbers is even because (2n+1)+(2n+1) = 4n+2 = 2(2n+1)