Call me a romantic!

I am one of those romantics, that Lakeoff and Nunez refers to in The Theory of Embodied Mathematics. I do believe that mathematical truth is universal, absolute, and certain; that mathematics would be the same even if there were no human beings; and that mathematicians are the ultimate scientists as described by the author’s description of the Romance of Mathematics. I believe the authors are naive to think that everyone will access mathematical thought in the same way. As a species we are fools to think we will ever truly understand the universe and it inner working. Mankind is young, we have much to understand. Albert Einstein said "If God has created the world, his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us." Mathematics is intimidating, but one can still enjoy and respect its existence.

Scientists stride to discover the theory of everything, a theory of theoretical physics that fully explains, predicts and links together all known physical phenomena. Is it so bad to hold such a romantic idea? Creativity is everything, as a species it helps us understand our world and stride to reach greatest.  Lakeoff and Nunez state that the romance of mathematics is the premise of most popular books on mathematics and many a science-fiction movies. When I was a kid, I remember watching Star Trek and Caption Kirk using his communicator to contact the Enterprise from anywhere on the planet below. It was fiction, it was creative, but through our further understanding of mathematics. Many of you are sitting next to your mobile phones as you read this blog. Mine is here next to me as I write it. 

John Brockman’s interview with Reuben Hersh, Hersh states that mathematics is “neither physical nor mental, it’s social. It’s part of culture, it’s part of history. It’s like law, like religion, like money, like all those other things which are real, but only as part of collective human consciousness” (Hersh, 1997). I do agree the importance of mathematics with respect to children’s education is social and cultural, fuelled by the need to have our children to obtain careers such as engineering, medicine, etc. As stated by a popular line from the film Jerry Maguire “show me the money.”

Hersh believes that “math is something human. There’s no math without people” (Hersh, 1997). Maybe Hersh is right. But when I look into the night’s sky, I see a lot of stars. To think we are the only species that have the ability to think and ponder this very issue is naive. But yet, we are a young species. When we are young, we believe everything exist for our own selfish needs. Our understanding of mathematics is human, how we conceptualise it’s exist is based on our limited experience. Albert Einstein once said "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." To think mathematics is something human, demonstrates how young we truly are. Call me a romantic!