On Dec 14, 4:18 am, Steven D'Aprano <steve +comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > > They might not be willing to define it, but as soon as we programmers > > do, well, we did. > > > Having studied the contemporary philosophy of mathematics, their concern > > is probably that in their minds, mathematics is whatever some dead guy > > said it was, and they dont know of any dead guy ever talking about a > > modulus operation, so therefore it 'does not exist'. > > You've studied the contemporary philosophy of mathematics huh? > > How about studying some actual mathematics before making such absurd > pronouncements on the psychology of mathematicians?
The philosophy was just a sidehobby to the study of actual mathematics; and you are right, studying their works is the best way to get to know them. Speaking from that vantage point, I can say with certainty that the vast majority of mathematicians do not have a coherent philosophy, and they adhere to some loosely defined form of platonism. Indeed that is absurd in a way. Even though you may trust these people to be perfectly functioning deduction machines, you really shouldnt expect them to give sensible answers to the question of which are sensible axioms to adopt. They dont have a reasoned answer to this, they will by and large defer to authority. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
