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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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