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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!decwrl!williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402)
From: williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: What it is.
Message-ID: <187@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 17:20:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.187
Posted: Tue Aug 27 17:20:59 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 00:30:26 EDT
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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	There is one more class of mathematical philosophy you have 
left out, and that is that mathematics is a language. Like all 
language, it hopefully represents something in reality, but that 
is not a requirement. Like all language, it is intrinsically 
limited in accuracy in describing reality.

	In an idealistic sense, one could state that mathematics 
is perfect, but from a more practical sense, it is imperfect when 
it comes to application.

	One of the more striking features of mathematics is that 
there are a multitude of approaches, or techniques, that when 
performed, will yield the same result. In application, however, 
there exists an optimum method of analysis that will yield the 
least residual error.

	I'm surprised no one thought of this.

						John.

Williams' first law of resolution:
There wll never be an end to your problems.

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