I have a 2-part blog series this month, looking at candidates that have been suggested as a “universal language” across cultures, a way that we all communicate because it’s part of the way our brains are organized. This week’s candidate is mathematics (later this month, music): https://sites.google.com/view/two-minds/blog
Here is part 2, looking at a different universal-language candidate, music: https://sites.google.com/view/two-minds/blog
Hi, Paul!
Is mathematics a universal language? - When is a language universal? It becomes so through its use. Where is mathematics not used? For poetic matters, for example, or things that cannot be expressed in math. What does mathematics do? It simplifies everything to a unit, because it can perform operations with it. the question is what can -or cannot- be reduced to a unity And here's where the math gets tricky: Everything can be simplified into units, but what do those units mean? Everything can be quantified- What does quantification mean? Complexity is the exact opposite. Good and evil aren't "black or white" —0 or 1— that's where the complexity of discussion begins, the complexity of diplomacy, and poetry. The complexity of aesthetics! A person is more than a number - unless he is reduced to a statistic or a census, or to a consumer.
Everything is universal when it is reduced - that is what reduction is - but culture is the exact opposite: it is the difference, that is what makes us human, our differences
best wishes,
willy
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