I think of math as a more general problem-solving technique doing essentially what you describe in your post. “What specifically is my problem? What do I mean when I say, ‘I need to eat better’ or ‘I’m so confused’? How can I write this down precisely, so I can know when an attempt at solving it works?”
Math has a connotation that you’re solving numbers or scientific problems, but I would argue we should expand its definition to include solving problems like, “where should we go for dinner?” I think the reason humans are applying it to these problems last (through recommendation algorithms) is because the solutions are much fuzzier. Set theory is chosen to be as consistent as possible, computer programs very rarely have bit errors, even physics experiments turn out more-or-less the same each time, but what you want to eat for dinner changes every day based on a lot of factors it’s difficult to be aware of, or say anything concrete about.
Seems reasonable, but, I think it is still just false that “math” is a word that means “the concept I was getting at in this post.” (Certainly it’s related, but, if you’re smushing the above together with math, I think you’re missing an important distinction)
I think of math as a more general problem-solving technique doing essentially what you describe in your post. “What specifically is my problem? What do I mean when I say, ‘I need to eat better’ or ‘I’m so confused’? How can I write this down precisely, so I can know when an attempt at solving it works?”
Math has a connotation that you’re solving numbers or scientific problems, but I would argue we should expand its definition to include solving problems like, “where should we go for dinner?” I think the reason humans are applying it to these problems last (through recommendation algorithms) is because the solutions are much fuzzier. Set theory is chosen to be as consistent as possible, computer programs very rarely have bit errors, even physics experiments turn out more-or-less the same each time, but what you want to eat for dinner changes every day based on a lot of factors it’s difficult to be aware of, or say anything concrete about.
Seems reasonable, but, I think it is still just false that “math” is a word that means “the concept I was getting at in this post.” (Certainly it’s related, but, if you’re smushing the above together with math, I think you’re missing an important distinction)