[FRIAM] truth, reality, & narrative

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

It's mostly the latter, that the *collection* of lemmas and theorems builds a scaffold (spatial metaphor) or takes the reader on a ride (time metaphor) from components to super-structure, from initial state to final state. Each brick/step in such composition is, *should be*, subject to doubt, as Jon argues. And, in practice, each brick/step is not only subject to doubt, but is also multivalent. A lemma in one argument may be a theorem in another argument. Ideally, mathematical reificationists will assert that the whole collection *must* hang together, for a True ride, or a perfectly solid foundation. And, my own personal view, is that math helps us *be* doubtful by honing disagreeing propositions into contradictions that we *want* (psychologically) to resolve ... It is the very (obsolete) definition of sophistry.

On 1/5/21 12:22 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I'm not sure what you are getting at here.  For concreteness, suppose the books were Sage notebooks, and could export to Maxima or Mathematica.   Couldn’t one be reasonably confident in the correctness of the calculations by reproducing them with two or more completely independent code bases, as well as by inspection?    Or maybe you mean the books are taking the reader in some direction, where the reader mostly has to accept the story as one of many possible stories.  And by the time they are to the end of it, they are committed to a way of thinking?


-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ