Sorry what? Ancient humans invented symbols to count. How is that not symbolic? ... | Hacker News

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		elliotec 6 months ago \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: How has mathematics gotten so abstract? Sorry what? Ancient humans invented symbols to count. How is that not symbolic? Geometry is “attached” to the physical world… but in an abstract way… but you can point to the thing your measuring maybe so it doesn’t count… Abstraction was perfected if not invented by mathematics.

Ekaros 6 months ago [–]

Symbolic here refers of doing math with place holders, be it letters or something. Ancient world had notations for recording numbers. But much less so to do math with them. Say like long division.

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