"Maths, in university, is useless bull..."

[Pekka]

yeah look in the mirror my friend! OMG LKOOlZ what a comeback!

Cold blooded...

[Az]

atta boy, Pekka!

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


"just"?

Isn't that the point, making better stuff?

I agree with Buck, making better stuff is bull. Has anybody tried to make worse stuff? So?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Drogue
Inapplicable? Possibly. Useless? Not at all.

So the study of maths is useful, the maths itself can still be useless bull****.

As the quote was in reply to "Philosophy, in university, is useless bull****", I don't think Asher can claim that Scabby is the only one being unreasonably generalising.

I agree with both of them. Maths and philosophy, at university, are useless bull****. But I happen to like useless bull****. So I'll let y'all troll merrily away as to which is more useless or purer bull****.

[Pekka]

Well it is the University.. if you don't fancy smoking cigarettes with those long holding things and zipping red wine as if you know anything about them and claim it to be great even though coke tastes better to you, hey, go study in Polytechnics or something. University is supposed to be 80% useless scientific mongering that has very little real life applications. And it's great. It's a test. If you can't recognize the 20% and truly know that stuff inisde out, it weeds the bad seed out. That's right I said it. Bad seed out, it's intellectuals way to form the group of elite, because what it REALLY means is, that if you ONLY handle the 20% that actually is important, you're only normal high educated loser. If you handle the rest of the 80%, or say even 70%, making a total of 90% handling, it means you're elite and you can use that useless information to baffle your debating opponents and make YOUR point the BETTER one, even though it would have very little to do with reality, you compensate that with the lack of real life experience, that other losers have. You play mind tricks on them and win. You win even if you are wrong. And what is that called? That is called POWER. And if you, on top of that, have some charisma, you're natural leader and you're a winner like me. If you fail on any of these points.. go back t oyour cardbox home loser.

[BeBMan]

Everything I don't like is useless bull.

[Last Conformist]

Most non-students I know couldn't tell what a derivative was if their life hinged on it.

[Whaleboy]

Complex mathematics has obvious uses is quantum, high energy, large-size and generally precise physics. As well as the numerous fields where analysis is required.

But more importantly, it is a study of logic, of reasoning, concepts etc, not merely for their own ends. We can reduce this to the old argument that education is only to make you into a better worker, must only be pragmatic etc, and if that's what you believe then you're not going to understand why mathematics, theoretical sciences, arts, languages and humanities are important.

[Az]

I WISH maths in uni were useless bull****...

[LulThyme]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Complex mathematics has obvious uses is quantum, high energy, large-size and generally precise physics. As well as the numerous fields where analysis is required.

But more importantly, it is a study of logic, of reasoning, concepts etc, not merely for their own ends. We can reduce this to the old argument that education is only to make you into a better worker, must only be pragmatic etc, and if that's what you believe then you're not going to understand why mathematics, theoretical sciences, arts, languages and humanities are important.

I agree...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Quote by me. Maths at high-school level will get you into useful subjects like computer science and philosophy, maths at university just leads to scientists making better toasters.

You can't use just high-school math in computer science, you know.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat

So the study of maths is useful, the maths itself can still be useless bull****.

As the quote was in reply to "Philosophy, in university, is useless bull****", I don't think Asher can claim that Scabby is the only one being unreasonably generalising.

I agree with both of them. Maths and philosophy, at university, are useless bull****. But I happen to like useless bull****. So I'll let y'all troll merrily away as to which is more useless or purer bull****.

Maths directly becomes useful in many applicable subjects.

Philosophy is only useful to people who need instruction on how to think and form arguments. People who shouldn't be in university in the first place.

The only perhaps "useful" part of philosophy is the study of past "philosophers", which is best served as a history course...

[Agathon]

Should this be: "For whom is X useful and when?"

If it is put that way it is a slam dunk. Higher mathematics is useful for a very small group of people engaged in very specialized tasks. The same goes for physics and most university sciences. Most people need never learn these things as it is more efficient to have only as many as need them, do them.

On the other hand, it would be very difficult to find a person who did not engage in ethical reasoning every day or who attempted to use practical logic. Perhaps we could excuse the world's hermits from this list, but I can't think of anyone else offhand.

So there you have it: things taught by philosophy are far more useful to more people and are useful more of the time, than specialist sciences are.

Mathematics is something that a few people need to do for some of the time. Critical thinking and moral argument is something that everyone does, most of the time.

Couldn't be clearer.

[Agathon]

Philosophy is only useful to people who need instruction on how to think and form arguments. People who shouldn't be in university in the first place.

Like you for instance.

Perhaps if you did philosophy, economics and similar subjects, your political views wouldn't be such an obvious joke.

[Asher]

Critical thinking and moral argument is something that everyone does, most of the time.

And is something that you don't need to teach somebody.

Morals should not be taught, people who need instructions on how to build arguments (especially from you) should not be in university in the first place...