· 2019· Book chapter
Adventures of a Mathematician
- 406citations
- 2019year
Short summary
Mathematicians' autobiographies often focus solely on factual recitations of mathematical achievements, neglecting the pictorial and symbolic nature of thought processes.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Mathematician autobiographies are often limited to factual recitations of achievements.
- Many mathematicians define their existence solely by their mathematical output.
- Human thought might be pictorial and symbolic, not primarily verbal or syllogistic.
- Internal logic processes could resemble operations with symbolic pictures or 'stories'.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Most autobiographical material by mathematicians is uniformly encyclopedic in recitation of facts: names, dates, and precedence of publication. Indeed, many mathematicians seem to define their existence in terms of mathematical achievements; like Hardy, they cease to exist when the muse departs. It is possible that human thought codes things not in terms of words or syllogisms or signs, for most people think pictorially, not verbally. The process of logic itself working internally in the brain may be more analogous to a succession of operations with symbolic pictures, a sort of abstract analogue of the Chinese alphabet or some Mayan description of events—except that the elements are not merely words but more like sentences or whole stories with linkages between them forming a sort of meta- or super-logic with its own rules.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source., 2019 · DOI ↗
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Field: History and Philosophy of Science
History and Philosophy of ScienceArts and Humanities