I’m seeing things as they are. Mathematics is the lingua franca of many disciplines at present.
but even the lingua franca isn’t the lingua franca anymore; it’s English; and THAT can change too. Cellular automata could easily replace mathematics as the language, or programming. It’s a language, easily replaceable.
There’s nothing magical about the language of mathematics or its system. It just works _really really well_ for what we know *right now*.
But what we know now, isn’t everything that _can_ be known and just as knowing a single language can make comprehending certain concepts difficult (not impossible) that stem from another tongue, so too there are limitations to mathematics as a language.
This is not a denial of mathematics; just a recognition of its limitations as a descriptive and practical language; it can’t handle everything; just a lot of things. It’s pragmatic and practical.
Words also handle a lot of things; practical and pragmatic, but mathematical language handles some things better than words, and words handle some things better than mathematics.
There are also other creative forms of expression. Mathematics is quite _literally_ creative when used with engineering.
Yet engineers know one thing: heuristics fill in the gaps where mathematics and in places where there is a lack of scientific theory. They have projects to accomplish; whatever tools are at hand, they will use. A knowledge of local politics is just as useful to an engineer as is mathematics in the completion of a project. Nothing is pure except in our imaginations. Real world is messier than all that.