p55-70

This week we had to read pages 55-70 and reflect upon it. Hofstadter states that, "If mathematics is anything, it is the art of choosing the most elegant generalization for some abstract pattern" (Hofstadter, 70). I am quite confused as to why he considers math the art of choosing elegant generalizations to patterns. From my perspective, math is discrete, there are no elegant generalizations but only one universal correct solution to a specific problem. Nobody elegantly generalizes the answer to 2+2 to be 4, it is just 4 because two of one thing combined with two of another is 4 of that thing. What if the opinion of the world changes to think that the most elegant generalization of 2+2 is 5, the answer would not change to 5. This is why math being the most elegant generalization for some abstract pattern does not make sense to me, 2+2 will always be 4, no matter where you are, in the past it was always 4, and in the future it will always remain 4.