A few days ago, I posted some commentary on a video of a young woman asking how anyone thought to come up with algebra. Some of y'all thought the question was stupid and didn't understand why I said it was profound. It can be difficult for fish to discover the water they swim in.

Most of us have been raised to accept things like algebra as, maybe not completely obvious, but mundane. Mathematics is just a given. But it had to come from somewhere, right?

Some of you implied that the Greeks just built on the practical knowlege of the Egyptians.

Well, yes and no. As Pearcey and Thaxton point out in their book, "The Soul of Science," most ancient civilizations had developed counting systems and rules for calculations as tools for practical ends, like surveying, commerce, and keeping track of the calendar. But they had...

...no sense of mathematics as a discipline unto itself. It was the Greeks to whom that became evident. WHY, though? The Greeks held a unique belief, metaphysically and epistemologically, about an abstract Platonic realm of Ideas or Forms, and in the power of reason.

It led to insights about mathematics that were like bolts of lightning from the sky. They were so profound and unexpected that centuries later Aquinas would be moved to refer to one of the world's great mathematicians not just as an intellectual hero, but as "spiritual Euclid."

Consider that the Pythagoreans were so entranced by the truths and power of mathematics, which to them were neither mundane nor obvious, that they became intertwined with the mystical and spiritual.

I will now quote an excerpt from chapter 6 of "The Soul of Science."

"In mathematics, it appears that we have access to truths that go beyond experience. Upon what, then, are they based? For Pythagoras and later for Plato, the answer was that mathematics is part of an ideal world—a realm of abstract principles (Ideas or Forms)...

...that gives rational structure to the material world.

To gain knowledge of this ideal world, Plato said, we cannot merely examine the material world. For although modeled upon the ideal Forms, material objects realize these Forms only imperfectly.

Insight into the Forms themselves is gained only by the light of reason, which "sees" abstractions such as mathematical truths much as the eye sees color and shape. We have only to cast the eye of reason upon them to "see" that they are true.

In the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition, the cosmos operates according to mathematical laws discoverable by reason. The underlying design of nature is mathematical.

The Greeks outlined the methodology of mathematics as well.

They began by asking the basic epistemological question: HOW DOES ONE GO ABOUT SEEKING THE TRUTHS OF MATHEMATICS—AND GUARANTEEING THAT THEY REALLY ARE TRUTHS? (emph. added) The answer was supplied by Euclid. Mathematical knowledge is absolute and infallible, Euclid said...

...because it begins with self-evident axioms or postulates and derives all further truths by deductive reasoning.

There are many types of reasoning...but only one guarantees a correct conclusion—deduction."

This was a unique accomplishment of the Greeks. It transcended...

...the desire to create practical tools for everyday tasks, and created a discipline to seek abstract truth for its own sake. THAT is the tradition from which algebra (eventually) came, and it led to a host of other developments, including modern science.

The young woman was not asking a stupid or obvious question. It was a profound question that, had she asked the right teacher, would've led her to the rich tradition on which much of Western Civilization was built, and is now, sadly and dangerously, being omitted or forgotten.