How abstract can math get and still be useful?

[Philosophy Explorer]

There are different levels of abstraction to math, one reason being is to generalize it to cover a wider area. It's natural to ask how far can one take this? If there are limitations, does this imply there's only so much we can know in math?

PhilX

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Bloody yanks and your Manglish. It's mathS!

[Philosophy Explorer]

Bloody yanks and your Manglish. It's mathS!

And this IS a philosophy forum. Care to discuss?

PhilX

[HexHammer]

And this IS a philosophy forum. Care to discuss?

Yes, that's excatly what it is, and you not doing philosophy!

You are only asking silly questions to get attention and a cozy chat for attention sake!

[Philosophy Explorer]

And this IS a philosophy forum. Care to discuss?

Yes, that's excatly what it is, and you not doing philosophy!

You are only asking silly questions to get attention and a cozy chat for attention sake!

Ask Veg a question and look what crawls out of the woodwork. Good ole Hex. Cozy chat, silly questions. The limit of your vocabulary. The question is why do you keep coming to my threads? To harass me as you have no interest in doing philosophy on them?

PhilX

[vegetariantaxidermy]

And this IS a philosophy forum. Care to discuss?

Yes, that's excatly what it is, and you not doing philosophy!

You are only asking silly questions to get attention and a cozy chat for attention sake!

Ask Veg a question and look what crawls out of the woodwork. Good ole Hex. Cozy chat, silly questions. The limit of your vocabulary. The question is why do you keep coming to my threads? To harass me as you have no interest in doing philosophy on them?

PhilX

I haven't seen you discuss anything so far. You just post random questions and then run away.

[Philosophy Explorer]

I haven't seen you discuss anything so far. You just post random questions and then run away.[/quote]

With respect to "running away", I look at all posts on my threads and if I'm knowledgeable and have something to contribute or have a question, then I'll respond. With random questions, far more interesting than the same question; if your complaint is I post too much which is what I suspect you mean, then how much is too much? There's always plenty to discuss. If you don't like the topic, then put up some threads of your own on what you do like to talk about.

PhilX

[HexHammer]

I haven't seen you discuss anything so far. You just post random questions and then run away.

This!

[Philosophy Explorer]

I haven't seen you discuss anything so far. You just post random questions and then run away.

This!

The same goes for you Hex.

PhilX

[Arising_uk]

There are different levels of abstraction to math, ...

Are there? How so?

[Blaggard]

In the 16th century someone created imaginary numbers, and then 3 centuries later it was not just useful it was fundamental to all science. How abstract can it get and still be useful ask me in 300 years.

[HexHammer]

I haven't seen you discuss anything so far. You just post random questions and then run away.

This!

The same goes for you Hex.

This is a blatant lie, I've given long and forfilling answers, and this only proves you have never read my answers, but only come here to to get attention and run away just like vegetariantaxidermy says.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Hex said:

"This is a blatant lie, I've given long and forfilling answers, and this only proves you have never read my answers, but only come here to to get attention and run away just like vegetariantaxidermy says."

Not on my threads you haven't (btw it's fulfilling, not forfilling - get a spellchecker which are free and I may be induced to post responses to my own threads).

PhilX

[HexHammer]

Hex said:

"This is a blatant lie, I've given long and forfilling answers, and this only proves you have never read my answers, but only come here to to get attention and run away just like vegetariantaxidermy says."

Not on my threads you haven't

Prove it!

[Philosophy Explorer]

I'm sure that Blaggard would be familiar with the following.

We have the factorial. A few examples are:

4! = 4•3•2•1 = 24
3! = 3•2•1 = 6
2! = 2•1 = 2
1! = 1 = 1

I'm sure you see the pattern. What would surprise many people is that the factorial can be extended in a consistent way. For example 0! = 1 (can you define 1/2! in a consistent manner?) In fact the factorial makes sense except for negative integers.

The point I'm making is that restricting the meaning of numbers may have inhibited math progress (as Blaggard has pointed with the so-called imaginary numbers). Still one has to wonder whether there's a limit to abstract math.

PhilX