A journalism department colleague sent me email expressing concerns about something I am allowing or suggesting members of my class do. The substance of our discussion and disagreement has nothing to do with math, but it did get me thinking.
Is there an ethics of math?
Is there a philosophy of math?
Do any of the questions that those of who live in a qualitative or aesthetic world ask a hundred times a day have any place in the world of math?
I hear mathematicians talk about "beauty" but what are they really thinking about. Same with elegance.
There are, of course right and wrong answers to problems or equations. But do the notions of "right" and "wrong" in a moral sense have any place at all when examining the world through a mathematical lens?
Do pure mathematicians find religious meaning in some numbers?
I'd love to get Prof. Saari on the phone and ask him.
I'd love to get back in touch with Paul Niquette. He thinks about these things.
I guess, now, so do I.
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