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Re: Mathematics as a language
Posted:
Nov 4, 2010 1:52 AM
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On Nov 3, 4:06 am, Aatu Koskensilta <aatu.koskensi...@uta.fi> wrote:
> Bill Taylor <w.tay...@math.canterbury.ac.nz> writes:
> > For many years now, I have been practicing to expunge the word
> > "believe" from all my writings. Whenever I see it crop up in the
> > writings of others, I am red-flag alerted to the high probability that
> > we're about to read some arrant nonsense.
>
> Well, I believe "believe" can be used perfectly meaningfully.
Oh yes indeed! I feel that it can, also.
However, "believe", as it has come to be forced to mean,
by religious apologists over the centuries, contains
an irremovable element in it, of...
"...and I will continue to believe this no matter what
evidence or argument is presented against it."
The word *shouldn't* contain this tincture, but it does,
often quite strongly, due to the scurilous efforts of
Judeo-Christo-Islamic religious cranks these last 2 or 3 millenia.
And thus, I want NO part of it!
Hence my claim above. I feel it is always better to use
terms like "point of view", "feel", "suspect", "working hypothesis"
etc etc, than to use the poisonous term "belief" - unless, OC,
you are in fact religious and want it understood in
the sense above.
I strongly doubt that Aatu wants to be understood that way!
-- Beliefless Bill
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