Math. The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols. This is the definition according to online free dictionary.. No wonder I struggle with math so badly. I can't even wrap my head around the definition of it. I've recently been turned on to a fellow called Derrida.. "the center is not the center".. If you are aware of him you know how mind blowing his writings are and how enter his mind is like falling down the rabbits hole.
The other day while sitting in my excruciatingly long math class my mind drifted, as it does when my teacher begins to ramble on the easy bits of an equation... "okay... now subtract 5 from both sides". My mind drifted to Derrida (http://www.iep.utm.edu/derrida/). I say drift but to land on Derrida is more like an cosmic shift and not a drift. I thought about how the image of two glasses becomes the word "two" and the word "two with the image"becomes the concept... but wait... there's to and too as well all sound like TWO.. while I giggled this off in my mind by saying "the center is not the center" I began to wonder how on earth we decided to label 2 as two and that 2+2=4??? Can Derrida be applied to math?? Some would argue yes because if we labeled 2 as 3 than 3+3=4 if we so chose to when developing language.
Math is supposedly constant though set fixed. I struggle with math it seems to me to be so much memorization. I see no logic in it. I have to memorize everything. mathematical equations are constantly popping up in the universe.. for example pie its apparently found everywhere. (http://turner.faculty.swau.edu/mathematics/materialslibrary/pi/pimystery.html) try and wrap your head around that lol. As my mind began to quietly and discreetly explode in class I began to wonder about those crazy alien conspiracies. Everything I know about math especially really BIG HARD COMPLEX math has been taught to me. I thought who the hell thought up this stuff? Did someone stumble on algebra and calculus the way we stumbled on gravity? It seems unlikely (those crazy alien people have it right). I thought about the first person to say 2x+5y=16 is actually y=mx+b and defines a line. (and that's some basic stuff folks). How do you come up with this stuff? And why does it make sense universally? Could it be from aliens? I have no clue, but I as I quantify "imaginary numbers" I begin to think that if 10i is possible we aren't far from little green men are we?
(just a disclaimer.. I'm NOT truly suggesting math came from little green men, unless yrs from now we find it did, then YES YES I was right!! lol... I'm just trying to illustrate the absurdity I feel when faced with math and language when the "two" combine. And for those who think I'd do better to pay attention, then to have these little Iliad's of the mind in class... believe me they are short trips with quick and easy access back, by the time my mind returns to it's "center" my teacher is just finishing up with .. "what you do to this side, you must do to the other..okay" )
