From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6639 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: jim stasheff Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Explanations Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:52:43 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: jim stasheff NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1303861701 10565 80.91.229.12 (26 Apr 2011 23:48:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:48:21 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Ronnie Brown , Graham White , categories@mta.ca To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Joyal=2C_Andr=E9=22?= Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Wed Apr 27 01:48:16 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.4]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QErzM-00047t-2T for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:48:16 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:36932) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QErwt-0000gz-0d; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:45:43 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QErwq-0006cy-Hh for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:45:40 -0300 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6639 Archived-At: On 4/25/11 9:51 AM, Joyal, Andr=E9 wrote: > The goal of a human proof is to convince other peoples of the truthfuln= ess > of a proposition. > It is by nature explanatory and it can lead to new insights. I disagree mildly. convincing other people of the truthfulness of a proposition can involve staightforward computation which I don't find explanatory jim [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]