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I think the problem with defining Mathematics is that everyone interested in defining Mathematics has a tendency to cast an overtly wide net such that nearly can be considered some form of Math. Wikipedia's definition of math (in the article) seems to have the same implications as wikipedia's definition of philosophy ("Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems") in terms of scope without the confidence to say it in as blunt terms. Philosophy can get away with it because it is the historical ancestor of most organized mental endeavors, but the math page can't seem to admit it.

Speaking of Wikipedia, it's well-documented that first link in many pages is the parent of that subject, and that the great ancestor of nearly all pages is "Philosophy" [0].For instance, Delaware is a US. State which is a political entity which is an entity which is something that exists, making it the subject of Ontology (study of existence) which is a subject of Philosophy. Mathematics however is partly the study of quantities, which can exist as a magnitude which is, of course, a subject of math. This means, nearly all of WikiProject Mathematics is determined to stay detached from the rest of human knowledge (admittedly based on this one, anecdotal and inconsequential metric).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosoph...




But what of the philosophy of mathematics! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics

All intellectual roads lead to philosophy.

Joking aside, I think we also run into problems with defining mathematics because its application and the thing itself are not really separable. One can have the philosophy of something, e.g. philosophy of mathematics, because philosophy as a method or type of intellectual excursion is not a single thing--you can go about philosophizing in many different ways, even if your topic is the same (e.g. logical positivist handling of philosophy of language vs. the ordinary language philosophers)--in the case of mathematics it is a field of study but it is more fixed as a method or tool of thought--there are several ways to go about philosophizing no matter what branch of philosophy you tackle, whereas with mathematics, while there are different branches of study, there is really only one mathematics--i.,e. there's only one way to go about mathematicizing correctly for a given problem, whereas there's not really a 'correct' way to philosophize about a given problem.

I would define mathematics as a particular mechanism of human thought/a particular way we understand the world (the human mechanism of quantification and manipulation of said quantities)

Of course mathematical realists will disagree with me.


Math is whatever it is mathematicians do.




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