Hello all,
So, what I really want to know concerning math is:

1
(Can I do this through math?)
What areas of math are most important to learn for a person(like me) who doesn't know math very well at all and, wants to learn exclusively for purposes of expressing self discovery, on many levels.
2
(What is math)
Is math simply, a refined language devised for better interpreting understanding and, transmitting phenomena?
3
(How do you feel about math?)
For you math-magicians out there: In what ways has math helped you; on the whole? What are some of your views on math and peoples attitudes towards it: misconceptions, misunderstandings etc. What has math done for you as an individual seeking different answers for different quensions?

I tried to ask these question best I could. Basically I'm just looking to get some basic knowledge from the pro's you know-what is it woth to me? I'm just very intriged by math in general but don't have much experience with it. What is the importance of math on the path, the journey of life?

Finding and following patterns, for one.

Parallels.

The fundamental nature of mathematics and its relationship with and to the cosmos, macro cosmically and micro cosmically.

"Parallel straight lines do not meet one another in either direction," Euclid.

The #4 universally evokes a sense of foundation.

Mathematics

Sew the seeds of mathematical logical thinking.

Greek word that means things that is learned. Studies shapes occurring in space, which may be thought of as a world of points, surfaces, and solids. Studies the properties of different shapes and the relations between them and how to measure them. Clearly defines the ideas that are to be discussed and clearly states the assumptions that can be made. Then, on the basis of both the definitions and assumptions, it forges a chain of proofs, each link in the chain being as strong as any other.

The secret to life can be found in mathematical thought.

All that is needed is interest and an un-distracted head.

“They say, what they say, let them say,” motto of Marischal College, Aberdeen.

“The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit,” A.N. Whitehead (1925).

“It is easier to square the circle than to get round a mathematician,” Auguste de Moran.

Over the centuries, mathematics has become one of the most useful and fascinating divisions of human knowledge.

The human race’s view of the world has at its foundations the principles of mathematics. From city planning to developments in outer space, to measurements of space and time as pertaining to the relationships of objects within a given space at any given time, it has the ability to be perceived from many simultaneous points of view.

Through the use of all different types of mathematics, especially the field of geometrics, there have been many applications in the realm of art. Artists have attempted quite successfully to reveal to the world the beautiful experience of mathematics and the underlying basic human need of mathematical form and structure in the world.

It helps us in many important areas of study and has the power to solve some of the deepest puzzles man must face. It is the study of quantities and relations through the use of numbers and symbols. Arithmetic deals with quantities expressed by numbers. Algebra uses quantities and relations expressed by symbols. Geometry involves quantities associated with figures in space. Trigonometry is concerned with the measurement of angles and the relationships of angles. Analytic geometry applies algebra to geometric studies. And calculus works with pairs of associated quantities and the way one quantity changes in relation to the other.

In the study of geometry one can follow the gradual unfolding of mathematical thought from its earliest beginnings to present time. The periods of important geometrical interest that have played such a large part in the development of not only mathematics but in the evolution of the human mind started to sprout up during the Greek period (300 BC-300 AD), Cartesian geometry and the Calculus period (1620-1720 AD), non-Euclidean, Projective and Algebraic geometric period (1800 AD onward), and the Foundations period (1880 AD onward). The history of mathematics has a direct bearing upon the concepts of measure and control, which are an integral part in the organization of society from its city planning to the proportions of its doorways and the movement of its people. This is an attempt to analyze, from all angles, a gestalt, if you will, and compare geometrises and other theories as relevant to not only the human experience and perception of space and time in mathematics but also as to its significance and applications in the realm of art.

Geometry is an important branch of mathematics and consists of finding many interesting and unusual facts about points, lines, and planes. It also includes finding lengths, areas, and volumes of geometric figures. The name geometry comes from Greek words that mean earth and measure. Excavations of ancient cities show that land and buildings were carefully laid out. Egyptian architects and engineers designed and built huge temples and pyramids. They also used geometry to determine the size of their fields, and to find the boundaries of their farms after the yearly floods of the Nile River washed away old landmarks.

Pi in the Sky: Counting, Thinking, and Being (1992) – John D. Barrow

· Mathematics has been founded upon the certainty that comes from speaking the language of science, a symbolic language that banishes ambiguity and doubt, the only language with a built-in logic, which enables us to intimate communion with the innermost working of nature.
· As science has progressed, it has become more mathematical in its expression and more unified in its structure.
· Why do we look to mathematics for answers to ultimate questions about the nature of physical reality?
· If we look at any technologically advanced society, we find them to be founded upon the language of mathematics.
· The development of our understanding of the natural world around us and within us.
· The work of scientific society is closely linked to number: to measuring, counting, surveying, dividing, and making patterns.
Mathematics works as a description of the world and the things that occur within it.
· The world dances to a mathematical tune.
· What are numbers and how did we come to discover them? But, did we really discover them, or perhaps we merely invented them?
· Is it a natural activity for the human mind or just a curious skill possessed by few?
· Pythagoras and his followers saw the numerical as a symbolic picture of the true meaning of the universe.
· They believed all numbers to be of two sorts, either whole numbers (like 1,2,3, …) or fractions which were made by dividing any whole number by another. These were called rational numbers.
· Eventually it was proved that the square root of 2 could not be expressed as the ratio of any two whole numbers.
· These later became known as irrational numbers, (3,5,6,7, etc).
· The world is not static but Pythagorean’s numbers were.
· Euclid’s pristine geometry had subtle influences upon other areas of human thinking. All architecture and artistic composition, all navigation and astronomy.
· Geometry stood for absolute logical certainty.
· The discovery of non-Euclidean geometry was, for a long time regarded as a curiosity, probably flawed in some way. Although curved surfaces clearly did exist, almost everyone believed that the physical space we live and move in, was really Euclidean.
· Other geometries could exist.
· The term ‘non-Euclidean’ came to be employed as a label for unconventional, non-traditional, or radical thinking.

"Everything either is or is not," Aristotle.

Math doesn't seem to me to be very useful for self-discovery, unless one views the self as including the physical universe. Math is most useful for problem solving, describing, and understanding in the physical world.

Mathematics is a formal language describing the number, shape, and place aspects of reality. As a pure abstraction, mathematics is a subset of the class of ideas. All ideas can be represented as strings of symbols. Therefore, mathematics is a subset of the set of all strings.

The self is the physical universe. Artists have proven that body/figure is but mathematical proportion.

That's a nice analogy. Here's another proof:

When you are in a room with other people, the only way you can figure out which one is you is by applying the laws of geometry.

weight, height, mass, volume, etc.?

There is an objective reality.

And my father and mother before me and their parents before them, etc., back to either Adam and Eve, or to the atoms of the primordial soup spewed forth from the mother of all big bangs, the Big Bang.

Nice Don, Big Bang! That's rich! HA HA AH Oh the irony.

Ok cool so, math is just a language then. A very caculated refined way of interpreting your own realizations. An irreplacable and real way of expressing and presenting discoveries/inventions of the mind.

I can see how math has benefited man beyond,"measure"! HA HA! But when it comes right down to it, that's all it's good for; in the face of death who cares about all this but math itself?

On that same token however I could see how math, given the chance, could more efficiantly express a given point as opossed to our current preferred style of language-communication. It is 100% more universal and much more complex and presice. Do you think we could ever ballance/combine/integrate the two to create a more,"mathematical-language"? If so how much easier would it be to emphasize a given point; spiritually, socially, politically or whatever the situation called for.

Do you think math has this potential or is my idea/question ignorant/confused?

One school of philosphers in the early 20th century (an offshoot of the logical positivist school) tried to clear up the confusion by doing just what Dakota suggests. They invented a new mathematical language to do philosophy in. The effort was not successful, and philosophers have now reverted to natural language.

philosophy deals in quality, math does not

'twas me, unlogged

How old are you guys (number), how many more do you get before your number is up?

Add it up! There is some math for ya > = .^ + //.

Math deals with linear progression in time.

1 second, 2 second, 3 second, 4

That math just passed by,
It's gone, there it is no more.

Math is the path, that along with many more, converges to the single fundamental path.

That leads to self discovery, yet that path is differnt for each of us, and distances required on various paths tread, vary from person to person, depending on the idiosyncratic need.

science is more than math

Yes, but fundamentally, it is built upon the concrete foundations of mathematical formula. Without math there would be no science. Math is the ultimate science. The science of mathematical proportion and formula.

Is science more than philosophy?

physical science was originally known as natural philosophy
http://www.friesian.com/hist-2.htm

Yes, but math has been around alot longer than either.

really?

Really!

who sez?

And art even longer than that.

So, is science the path?

I've personally, synthesized it into my philosophy of and on the nature of absolute and ultimate reality.

Along with psychology, mathematics, cosmology, and etc., etc.

'quality' is in the metalanguage

"Quale" is too.

Fennema

Try to minimize the constraining effects of sex role on cognitive functioning.

There is a preference for males to be in active games and past-times concerned with skills and mastery of objects.

There is a preference for females for play in which they practice skills related to mastery over people and interpersonal relations.

While males favour achievement in the traditionally highly valued areas of intellectual expertise and leadership skills, females are considered more likely to aim for excellence in areas congruent with their traditional role, that is, areas that require social skills.

Thus mathematics stereotyping as a male domain has often been used to explain females’ lower performance and participation in post compulsory mathematics courses.

Components of general intelligence include numerical, verbal, and spatial skills.

Spatial skills are related to mathematical achievement.

Spatial skills are diverse such as mentally rotating a cube or reorienting oneself in relation to a fixed object.

Spatial visualization includes mentally manipulating all or part of an object.

Performance involving the reproduction and/or combination of spatial information at the internal level.

Involve complicated, multi-step manipulations of spatially presented information.

Space structuring, females left, males right.

Technics and Civilization (1963) – Lewis Mumford

18th century automation, step from naturalism to mechanisms.

The next move is to remove the organic symbol entirely.

Mechanization and regimentation have been projected and embodied in organized forms, which now dominate every aspect of our existence.

Surrendering to the machine.

Three phases of the machine and civilization: 1. The first wave came in the 10th century in an effort to achieve order and power by purely external means, turned away from the momentous moral and social difficulties that it had neither confronted nor solved. 2. The second wave came in the 18th century, where external regimentation and internal resistance went hand in hand. 3. Modern day.

The characteristic properties of emerging order – its patterns, its planes, its angles of polarization, and its colours.

Can one, in the process of crystallization, remove the turbid residues left behind by our earlier forms of thought?

Machines have developed out of a complex of non-organic agents for converting energy, for performing work, for enlarging the mechanical or sensory capacities of the human body, or for reducing to a measurable order and regularity the processes of life.

The tool lends itself to manipulation, the machine to automatic action.

The Universe as ordered by God.

No two cultures live conceptually in the same time and space.

Kant “Time and space are categories of the mind.”

I think in this case, the shadow revealed shape, and measurement of the distance between the well and Alexandrea revealed the size.