Weinstein (Geometry, physics, economics), Taleb (financial modeling), Mandelbrot (computation) and I, Doolittle, (AI simulation, law, and econ) all discovered the same problems with 20th century thought, and Joscha Bach is the only other person that appears to understand fully: ‘Mathiness’. (Difference is I didn’t, and still don’t, care for public attention, and only tolerate it for the purpose of solving the crisis of our age.)
To understand mathiness (mathematical sophistry), It’s more important that you understand the operational foundations of mathematics, what’s possible and not with mathematics as we understand it, what the ‘next’ mathematics would consist of – than it matters HOW TO DO THAT MATH. Understanding what’s said is all that’s necessary.
Once you know the foundations of math (and how simple it is), then you are less subject to the frailties of ‘Mathiness’. Mathiness is analogous to sophistry in logic of language.
“Mathiness” is a problem because math serves as the cognitive gold standard of reduction of errors in perception, deduction, inference.
Why? because numbers (positional names) have only one property “position” and for all intents and purposes, because each position consisting of a unique name, is almost impossible to engage in conflation or inflation – that’s the problem with language that P-Law tries to solve: ending the possibility of ambiguity that permits errors or deceits of deduction and inference.
So we can treat math as a language using set logic (ideal), or as an instrument, measurement using operations (real) without the failure of the ideal.
And we can treat language as mathematics using operational names that are equally closed to errors or deceits of deduction and inference by using P-Law’s Disambiguation by serialization and operationalization.