John-Paul Flintoffhttps://pluralistic.net/2026/03/19/jargon-watch/
“language isn't math (which is why double negatives are intensifiers, not negators)”
Phosphenes@johnpaulflintoff @pluralistic
I once tried to work out a 'Spanish negatives' multiplication system, where EG:
-2 * -3 = -6
so square_root(-9) = -3 and so on.
It's all fun and games until you multiply negatives times positives and try to come out with symmetrical answers.
But it does make one wonder if our language had been different, maybe our math would have been too.
Christopher@Phosphenes @johnpaulflintoff @pluralistic Number systems have properties. In this case multiplication together with addition (which is where negation comes from) form a ring, which has a certain set of those properties. For multiplication of negative numbers to be negative we have to give up at least one of those properties, the really important one of distribution, the one that links addition and multiplication. I'm not sure if what you've got left is very useful in that case (no interesting properties, not a useful model of reality).
@dearlove @johnpaulflintoff @pluralistic
Agree, it's the uselessness of a fully symmetrical system that makes it less interesting.
A system with a self-contradiction is kind of like a shirt with more buttons than holes. You can start buttoning at the top and find the discontinuity at the bottom, or start at the bottom and find it at the top.
The glitch is like a bubble you can push around, so we choose to push it to where it is the most useful.