Does anyone ever really know what the fuck is going on?

most (99.9999…%) math is unknowable. not unknowable in the sense of “we just need to be smarter and work harder”, but literally unknowable. the math we work on and find solutions to, while potentially practically useful to humans, is an incredibly tiny sliver of the overall piece. most math is chaotic, random, and not provably true or false.

furthermore the facilities in the brain that give rise to math are tightly couple with language and 3D visualization, all of which are highly arbitrary and error prone as part of the byproducts of evolution. so it’s not at all clear whether the part where our brain breaks down (uncountable sets) is actually an arbitrary byproduct of evolution or a fundamental component of the universe.

so, no, we are actually still winging it pretty hard on math as well. that being said, it can still be extremely useful is particular cases or in cases where precision is not needed.

/r/TooAfraidToAsk Thread Parent