• BanMe@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    It became a meme a few years ago, people would post problems like this and argue about whose was right, as if there were no objective truth. It hurt to watch.

    • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.de
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      17 days ago

      Arguably, there is no objective truth, since the symbols and rules of mathematics are assigned arbitrarily, and are basically a social contract, just like language!

      …Wait, that means there’s no objective meaning of “objective”, crap

      • Arguably, there is no objective truth

        Yes there is, just look in Maths textbooks

        since the symbols and rules of mathematics are assigned arbitrarily

        The signs are, the rules aren’t.

        are basically a social contract, just like language!

        Nope and nope. It’s a tool for calculating things, nothing like a language at all.

        no objective meaning of “objective”

        There is, in a dictionary, just like the rules of Maths are in Maths textbooks

      • BanMe@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Well yeah take enough shrooms and everything is suddenly exposed as the artificial construct that it is. But we don’t have time to wake up and reinvent language every morning ;)

    • bountygiver [any]@lemmy.ml
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      17 days ago

      ya this one is super unambiguously PEMDAS, the one that has more of an argument is the one with the division of whether a/b(c) is a / (b * c) or (a / b) * c