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Toggle comments on Book Review: Naive Set Theory (MIRI research guide) - Less Wrong Discussion

13 Post author: David_Kristoffersson 14 August 2015 10:08PM

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Comment author: Toggle 15 August 2015 12:18:37AM *  4 points [-]

I finished this book about four months ago, and time is making me increasingly glad that I read it. In particular, its treatment of countable infinities, functions, proof by induction, and the Peano axioms have been worth their weight in gold. When I encounter similar subjects 'out in the wild', I can approach them with relative skill and trust my intuitions in a way that I couldn't before. It's really growing on me.

That said, as a near-introduction to set theory, it was a very difficult read at times. It was a treatment of mathematics far deeper than I had come to expect from my university courses (which were largely in continuous mathematics, according to ancient engineers' tradition). If school has trained you to approach mathematical subjects as a tool the same way it did me, you'll need to adjust your expectations. This book is about virtuosity, not just surveying the tools.