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Hyperfocus on arguments, math as a coping tool

To me, the word “argument” does not carry a negative connotation. To me, it refers to “a statement, reason, or fact for or against a point”.

I think of it as a mathematical statement that can be proved or disproved.
I have less interest for something that cannot be proved or disproved, like a feeling, or art.

This is often mistaken to mean that I look down on art. This is not true.
Nor do I look down on feelings. I often have feelings. I am sharing them in this blog.

I tend to hyperfocus on arguments. I get carried away — this is why I usually don’t allow myself to join forum sites, because I will waste hours on arguing everyday (in the literal sense — I am not necessarily on bad terms with the other person).
And it is harmful in daily life, since most people do not like arguing and judge harshly upon my character.

So to fulfill this need, I started doing mathematics.

With math, I can argue and prove to my heart’s content and be rewarded for it.
I don’t need to worry about somebody getting mad at me, and attempting to ruin my life.

And math is hard. It cannot be mastered in a couple weeks of obsessive internet searching. It takes decades, possibly a lifetime for somebody to become truly good at it. It is robust enough to absorb my full energy and dedication.

It is cheap. I can download a textbook for free. All papers are free to read. It requires no equipment outside paper and everyday writing tools.

Math is useful. I can use it to help people solve problems, which will help me earn money, so I can live comfortably, and do more math, and solve even more problems, and live even more comfortably.
This is important to me, as I like to allot my time to things that make a physical difference to my lived experience.

There is a community around math of somewhat likeminded people. Not all of them, but they tend to be more similar than the folks I meet at work for example. It also seems to be common for those in graduate school for pure maths to be on the spectrum, at least from what I have seen.

I am not very good at it yet. I see somebody in research math, or with a gold medal from the math olympiads, as being good at math. Perhaps this criteria is too harsh. But I am trying.

I am happy to have this discipline to fulfill my needs, as without it, I will end up day dreaming or mindlessly surfing the internet. While these are not bad things, they do not add to my life, and when I tried to live like this in the past, with no particular end in mind, I have driven myself into depression, as diagnosed by a psychiatrist.
So having a discipline is good for mental health as well.

I suspect it is the external nature which appeals to me. It not based on my personal whims. It is based on logic, and rational pathways of thought, meticulously examined and shared by a timeless community of other minds. To me this conjures images of a spiritual brotherhood, or sisterhood. A shared understanding, and even intimacy, in seeing and understanding a phenomenon that transcends even words and emotions, with other human beings. That math applies to everybody, and it doesn't come from me, appeals to me. Perhaps that is the draw of the natural sciences.

Comments

Math is a particular obsession of mine. I always have a math problem to think about or "escape into". I usually think about math as I'm going to sleep every night.

I enjoy exploring unsolved math problems ("open problems"). I have never solved any unsolved problem, but it usually leads to me learning more.

I am uncertain of myself in many areas - never know if I'm doing the right thing socially, etc., but when it comes to math, I have absolute confidence.
 
Math is a particular obsession of mine. I always have a math problem to think about or "escape into". I usually think about math as I'm going to sleep every night.

I enjoy exploring unsolved math problems ("open problems"). I have never solved any unsolved problem, but it usually leads to me learning more.

I am uncertain of myself in many areas - never know if I'm doing the right thing socially, etc., but when it comes to math, I have absolute confidence.
What your favorite kind of math?
And how can one perform better on exams?

I’m in the awkward phase of trying not to suck. I started learning math last year for the first time in 15 years, and am currently doing an undergraduate degree. During covid, I was encouraged by some people in higher level math/physics that I have potential. Yet potential does not make up for poor computation skills …
 
@Nervous Rex
To give an idea of the crash course nature of this year, a year ago I was reviewing what the square root sign means, and how to add fractions. And now I am taking linear algebra, real analysis, and calculus covering up to multivariate calculus (all mandatory classes).
We went through a basic proof writing class last semester, and half of the linear algebra class is writing proofs.
This rushed nature is not ideal, but I am holding up ok I think considering I have a full time job too.
 
@Nervous Rex
To give an idea of the crash course nature of this year, a year ago I was reviewing what the square root sign means, and how to add fractions. And now I am taking linear algebra, real analysis, and calculus covering up to multivariate calculus (all mandatory classes). ... This rushed nature is not ideal, but I am holding up ok I think considering I have a full time job too.
Awesome! You should be proud of yourself.

My favorite math is discrete math or diophantine equations. As I said, I can't claim to be great at it, but it's fun.

For work, I'm a programmer for a company that makes slot machines and lottery devices. I do a lot of statistical analysis - trying to tell if some feature makes a significant difference in game performance, finding better math to make code/tests/features run faster, etc. A lot of it is half math and half programming. While I'm okay at either one, I think I do awesome when both are needed.

In my spare time, I play around with problems related to "how fast can I calculate this?" For example, I found a way to precisely calculate the number of ways to place walls in the game Quoridor. There are 1,375,968,129,062,134,174,771 ways - that's far too many for a program iterate through every possible way, so I found a way to consider all the possibilities without iterating through them. I'm working on a way to incorporate the placement of pawns in the game so I can precisely calculate the total number of states that the game can have.
 
@Nervous Rex
To give an idea of the crash course nature of this year, a year ago I was reviewing what the square root sign means, and how to add fractions. And now I am taking linear algebra, real analysis, and calculus covering up to multivariate calculus (all mandatory classes).
We went through a basic proof writing class last semester, and half of the linear algebra class is writing proofs.
This rushed nature is not ideal, but I am holding up ok I think considering I have a full time job too
Wow that is very impressive!
 
Awesome! You should be proud of yourself.

My favorite math is discrete math or diophantine equations. As I said, I can't claim to be great at it, but it's fun.

For work, I'm a programmer for a company that makes slot machines and lottery devices. I do a lot of statistical analysis - trying to tell if some feature makes a significant difference in game performance, finding better math to make code/tests/features run faster, etc. A lot of it is half math and half programming. While I'm okay at either one, I think I do awesome when both are needed.

In my spare time, I play around with problems related to "how fast can I calculate this?" For example, I found a way to precisely calculate the number of ways to place walls in the game Quoridor. There are 1,375,968,129,062,134,174,771 ways - that's far too many for a program iterate through every possible way, so I found a way to consider all the possibilities without iterating through them. I'm working on a way to incorporate the placement of pawns in the game so I can precisely calculate the total number of states that the game can have.
I find your job fascinating! i have for many years when I am very upset about something, I have a notebook I keep with me and I just start doing simple math and it calms me down very quickly. I like to use 2 pens , any odd number I use a red pen.
I always though if I give up music I would dive into mathematics more . Odd thing is I didn’t like it much in school , but I really enjoy it now .
 
@Mz Muffinz and @ Nervous Rex we should figure this one out !
 

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Awesome! You should be proud of yourself.

My favorite math is discrete math or diophantine equations. As I said, I can't claim to be great at it, but it's fun.

For work, I'm a programmer for a company that makes slot machines and lottery devices. I do a lot of statistical analysis - trying to tell if some feature makes a significant difference in game performance, finding better math to make code/tests/features run faster, etc. A lot of it is half math and half programming. While I'm okay at either one, I think I do awesome when both are needed.

In my spare time, I play around with problems related to "how fast can I calculate this?" For example, I found a way to precisely calculate the number of ways to place walls in the game Quoridor. There are 1,375,968,129,062,134,174,771 ways - that's far too many for a program iterate through every possible way, so I found a way to consider all the possibilities without iterating through them. I'm working on a way to incorporate the placement of pawns in the game so I can precisely calculate the total number of states that the game can have.
1,375,968,129,062,134,174,771 --- i love you math people but when I see this number I see it as sounds and what to embellish those sounds as many times as I see each number. yeah, I'm a music nerd and prefer not to count let alone remember formulas is bad enough to understand a flow chart for a computer program that i'd prefer not to write or debug the code. geez, HTML is bad enough especially with the new 5 blah blah blah
 

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