I'm Scared of Math

[Julian gabriel]

I've built an identity around being smarter than other people, because I'm good with words and philosophy and psychology which makes me sound smart in everyday conversations.

But I've always been terrible at math, so when I do it I don't feel like myself since I want to see myself as smart.

Its difficult for me to see the beauty of math so I'm not really motivated to learn it, but i find myself in a position where I have to. 

How do I overcome my fear of it and recognize its beauty? 

 

[Kksd74628]

@Julian gabriel

Become so confident about your strenghts that you don't care about your weaknesses.

[Nilsi]

Idk what kind of math you need to do, but generally there is a lot of beauty to be found in mathematics; Pythagorean philosophy, Euclidean geometry, fractals, nonlinear dynamical systems, game theory, probability theory... You could just grab a few books on these topics, and appreciate the beauty of mathematics , and maybe you'll end up enjoying your mathematics in the end. 

You also don't have to enjoy everything you learn. Sometimes you need to know some shit that is giga boring and dry, but it will make your understanding of the things you're passionate about that much richer, for it to be worth it to fight through.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Nilsi

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

4 hours ago, Nilsi said:

giga boring

"giga boring" is my new favorite expression hahaha

[Arcangelo]

I love math.

 

[TurquoiseAngel]

You can learn anything. Think about how much embracing math will make you even more smarter and soon you will love it.

[AtheisticNonduality]

On 8/17/2022 at 4:01 PM, Julian gabriel said:

I'm good with words and philosophy and psychology which makes me sound smart in everyday conversations.

Notice that your linguistic, philosophical, and psychological skills with logic are applicable to mathematics, because math is a language (like a network of meanings, although seemingly more quantitative than qualitative at times) related to truth (philosophy) and how the mind is organized (psychology can be viewed as a list of mechanisms and being-states mentality and emotionality go through, like computations with specific logical formulations). So there is obviously an undiscovered overlap here for you, since your logic in one area correlates with another, though this has yet to be applied.

Quote

the beauty of math

Start by thinking of how all of reality is, in a way, divisible into numbers. You have dualities (self and other, subject and object, inside and outside, here and there, up and down, rough and smooth) that make up everything, whether abstractly or concretely (abstraction vs. concretization is another duality). This makes reality into two parts, maybe ego and God or physical and immaterial or whatever else.

Then there are not just dualities but also triplicities. There is not just the future and the past but the present moment that unites them both. There is not just up and down but right here at this point in space. There is not just black and white but also gray. There is not just day and night but morning/evening. But still you don't have to go into the gray zone of this triplicity of day-night; you could go deeper into one end like midnight or midday. These distinct places in space and time (like geometry and graphs) are all about location, meaning, quality, extension, and explainable in terms of numbers. Exploring numbers helps to explain the beauty of all of this.

And so on ad infinitum. All of the shapes and physical patterns and quantities and differences and similarities come down to numerical expressions, and it's infinite because that is nature of reality, an infinity of perfection that holds all the basic ways of number under it, the forms of number and the formless divine God that is them.

On 8/17/2022 at 4:01 PM, Julian gabriel said:

How do I overcome my fear of it and recognize its beauty? 

It all comes down to systems, like fluctuations and stabilities, as well as truths of metaphysics that go beyond all physical (or psychological) systems. Once you recognize the importance, the beauty, the usefulness of its logic, then your fear will become obsolete and go away on its own.

[Raze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cVBohQ2x1c

 

[something_else]

The bigger problem here is building an identity around being smart. It tends to backfire quite a lot because you believe everything should be easy for you. But there are some things that are just plain hard and require a lot of work even if you are smart. Maths is one of those things. The people who are good at maths aren't always especially smart, they are just passionate and put a lot of work in.

Out of curiosity, were you someone who could pass exams in school with minimal studying? This is quite a common archetype for someone who builds an identity around being smart.

[Yarco]

Lean into it and embrace your weakness. Make how bad at math you are into a joke.

I'll intentionally add super easy numbers together incorrectly, like I'll be talking to someone and have to add 12 + 3 together on the spot and say 17. I find self-amusement in it because half the time even my wife can't tell if I'm serious or actually that dumb. It provides cover for the times I'm legitimately trying to add larger numbers in my head and mess it up. Turn how dumb you are into meta-irony.

At the end of the day, I've never had to add/subtract/multiply/divide a number on the spot that was of any significance. A day later it doesn't matter if I said 17 or 15. Most of the time you're doing math in a conversation you're just bullshitting and making estimates that don't mean anything anyway.

Justify how bad you are at math, by rationalizing how useless math is to most people in everyday life. We all carry a phone with a calculator around in our pockets 24/7. If there is any important math you need to do, you can just use a calculator. The important thing is knowing the principles behind the math and how to apply them, not how to manually do math in your head. Admittedly I've become so reliant on calculators that it's a struggle to remember my 7, 8, 9+ multiplication tables off the top of my head, and I don't care. It's useless information and I'm smart in plenty of other non-math ways. I always use a calculator 100% of the time for anything I want an exact answer for, just to remove any possible human error.

I have a degree in accounting and I worked in accounting for several years. And I'd have to stop and think for a second to tell you what 7 x 8 is. Let that sink in for a bit and recontextualize intelligence and the importance of math, or what areas of math are important.

Similarly I write for a living and off the top of my head I couldn't give you an example of a verb or adjective. I intuitively know how to use them, I don't need to know the theory behind them, or be able to define or categorize them.

Quote

Its difficult for me to see the beauty of math

How do I overcome my fear of it and recognize its beauty?

There's probably plenty of things in the world that you already find beautiful without any effort. Why not focus on those instead of trying to force an appreciation for something that doesn't come naturally?

Chess looks super interesting to me, and I would feel really smart and accomplished if I could get a good chess ELO. But I've tried multiple times in the past and I just can't wrap my head around it. So I can appreciate that it takes a lot of skill and there is probably beauty in a skillful chess match, but I just leave it alone and find something else to focus on because it's not for me. Could I learn to be good at chess? Yes but it would probably take me 10x more effort than someone with a natural inclination for it, and I would hate it after a while, so what's the point? There isn't enough time in a lifetime to get good at everything, so it's probably better to focus on stuff that comes naturally to you.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Yarco

[gettoefl]

this is a very good book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematics-Nonmathematician-Morris-Kline/dp/0486248232