The Merits of Math?

Hey everyone,
I'm not sure how I got lost and ended up here, but now that I am I have a question for you all. I am a visual-spatial learner, on his way to some day become an artist. All my life I have been better at drawing and expressing/understanding the world and myself emotionally than I have at logic and argumentation. I am a strong case. To give you some examples, I am 21 years old and mess up every time I have to give someone change back when exchanging between notes and coins. I know the four basics, addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, and when I am explained concepts I generally tend to feel that I understand them...

But I always fail when I try calculating by myself, be it by head or anything else. And if I have to in an important context, it gets twice as bad, I lose my head and become nervous and fail tremendously. So, all this time I have lived by the perception that math are good and can help us, but are not that important and can only contribute to special "logically gifted" peoples' lives.

I am currently going through a course where I also take some basic high school level maths as a required subject. I felt nervous with the idea as first as this is actually the highest level I've ever taken, but our teacher is great. He's different and tells me that I could probably be good at it. This is something that actually somehow strikes me at the very core of who I am.

My question here is: What can I use math for? What use does it have? Why should I bother learning? Not speaking as an artist now, but as a person. How can it help me in my life. The way classes usually happen is that we learn...

"This is how you do something." (obscure)

But not why we even want to do it. This is how math has always been teached to me. Recently I have become more in tune with me being a visual-spatial learner, but schools don't teach appropriately for that here. Still, I have been able to use my own approach on learning from our classes, and surprisingly I am seeing progress. This surprises me.

As I mentioned, I need you to help me with probably the most basic of all math that can be taught - what merit it has for existing and being used. I feel that with this teacher I could go out of my way and practice in the afternoons, but I have no argument to why I should. Everywhere math is considered the root of "being smart", but I've never had it with me and still people hold me in high regards.

Please help me.
You could be changing someone's life and preconceptions permanently.

Higher levels of math give you a different logical structure to approach problems.

theres a big difference between arithmetic and mathematics as a whole.  most people stop learning math once they're done with high school algebra, and dont really get to the parts that are interesting.  everything up to that is just sort of like learning the tools for the more meaningful things.  you've learned algorithms, methods for solving certain things.  math at higher levels becomes more like a puzzle of seeing how things relate to eachother and fit together.

upper level math is about reasoning and logic, not memory and arbitrary algorithms for a certain situation.  its more about the why than the how.

in my opinion, anyone who is intelligent can 'get' math if they're taught it correctly, or view it the right way for them.  it really is intuitive, after all, your brain is a big logic machine.

eat shit and die

Speaking strictly in terms of knowledge gained, high level mathematics classes will do very little for most people.  Basically, only engineers and other math related careers actually apply what is learned in calculus or physics classes.

These classes do teach your mind to think more logically however.  Which is exactly why seemingly unrelated majors have math requirements.  Math also increases your understanding of how things work and interrelate. 

For example, just the other day I was watching Home Alone 2, and on a whim I decided to calculate exactly how fast the bricks were smacking the bad guys' heads.  Thats obviously a silly example but it's kind of fun to walk around and being able to think to yourself "Hey, I know why/how that works!"

Math isn't hard.  It is intimidating to a lot of people though.  From the sound of it you've got at least half a head on your shoulders, and thats all you need.  Don't get flustered.  Math is just like others things, confidence plays a big part in your success.

ps: I'm just as boggled by art as you are by math,  intelligence is all relative.

>>5
Calculus and applied physics aren't exactly higher level math.

Lol calculus. The earliest encounter with real maths people usually have is when they explore finite dimensional vector spaces in their full generality in some linear algebra (sometimes not the first) course.

and art has nothing to do with intelligence. complete retards have mastered it.

>>1
If your mainly a visual spatialist then you should have a good ability to understand graphs, planes and grasp geometry... Perhaps also better at the abstraction level.
But if you're anything like me, it takes longer to see the numbers themselves in an abstract way that makes it easier and the whole numbers and calculations parts will always be a pain in the ass. You will probably be able to grasp new concepts easier and perhaps remember formulas for them decently.

Math itself can be used for just about everything, but it's not required. The correct term is 'applied mathematics.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_mathematics
Technically you use applied mathematics when you do shit like measure areas and count money and shit, but that's basic... Word problems would most likely be better for you if you also have good linguistic skills and learn the 'keywords.' Barring word problems, you may do well with 'seeing' the problem and being able to figure out how to solve them using whatever math you learn that's appropriate for that.

Geometry and trigonometry will probably be your best areas to work on for that.

Higher math isn't going to help you too much if it's not required for your job, unless you've got a knack for applying it in every practical situation no matter how assinine. Most people don't.
Learn it if you like it, otherwise don't worry about it. Don't worry about it in an intellectual manner. There are many things that intelligent people do besides math, it's generally considered something for 'smart' people because everyone gets to take a crack at it over thier lifetime in some form of another so they see how much difficulty they have, but it's just like other areas in life.
Sometimes people who are good at math aren't so great at other things either.

Depends on the individual. Just figure out whether you have a place for it in your life or not and take it from there. Don't force it to 'seem intellectual.' Trying to seem 'intellectual' is the most unintellectual thing you can do. It's far better to choose an area of study, and actually study. It helps if you like the area.

For a good demonstration of how math could be used in various settings, watch the tv series numb3rs... The math behind everything is legit, but most if not all of the cases are based on actual cases but that aren't true to how they were actually solved, in which case by completely non mathemetical means by normal people.
But the math principles they discuss and 'use' in the show are real. Though the show ends up getting into a lot of repeat 'use various maths to find where badguy is.'

>>6

To someone like the OP, who has very little math experience, yes they are.

Anyways, >>1, please listen to me. That it's really related to this thread.
I went to Yoshinoya a while ago; you know, Yoshinoya?
Well anyways there was an insane number of people there, and I couldn't get in.
Then, I looked at the banner hanging from the ceiling, and it had "150 yen off" written on it.
Oh, the stupidity. Those idiots.
You, don't come to Yoshinoya just because it's 150 yen off, fool.
It's only 150 yen, 1-5-0 YEN for crying out loud.
There're even entire families here. Family of 4, all out for some Yoshinoya, huh? How fucking nice.
"Alright, daddy's gonna order the extra-large." God I can't bear to watch.
You people, I'll give you 150 yen if you get out of those seats.
Yosinoya should be a bloody place.
That tense atmosphere, where two guys on opposite sides of the U-shaped table can start a fight at any time,
the stab-or-be-stabbed mentality, that's what's great about this place.
Women and children should screw off and stay home.
Anyways, I was about to start eating, and then the bastard beside me goes "extra-large, with extra sauce."
Who in the world orders extra sauce nowadays, you moron?
I want to ask him, "do you REALLY want to eat it with extra sauce?"
I want to interrogate him. I want to interrogate him for roughly an hour.
Are you sure you don't just want to try saying "extra sauce"?
Coming from a Yoshinoya veteran such as myself, the latest trend among us vets is this, extra green onion.
That's right, extra green onion. This is the vet's way of eating.
Extra green onion means more green onion than sauce. But on the other hand the price is a tad higher. This is the key.
And then, it's delicious. This is unbeatable.
However, if you order this then there is danger that you'll be marked by the employees from next time on; it's a double-edged sword.
I can't recommend it to amateurs.
What this all really means, though, is that you, >>1, should just stick with today's special.

>>10
OP here
fucking ridiculous, i lol'd ;p

>>8, >>5 and >>3
I think your post helped me, and changed my viewpoint a little. Thanks.

Add to anything you may have heard the fact that truly understanding mathematics (and more fundamentally, logic in general) enriches your understanding of almost everything in the world.  Additionally, if you grasp logic and mathematics, you can learn anything else.

I asked my abstract algebra teacher once, what the entire point of the course was. She told me that it was difficult to point to real, practical applications until you got to or past the doctorate level, and even then they were scarce. What was important, she said, was that the course primed you on how to -think- mathematically, to think deductively, in terms of truth and what you know, and what does that mean? and how can you categorize the things you have into meaningful groups, so that you can evaluate them? etc.

>>13
What about stock control?