Chapter 10: Context

Lasagne

The basic point here is that recipes look different depending on who the reader is
- beginner, talanted amateur, expert chef. What is 'basic' in a recipe depends on
the context.

CT emphasises the *context* in which we are thinking about things. What details are
we interested in? What features do and don't matter in *this* situation. Consider
the number 5. There are situations where 5 is 'basic', others in which it is not.

In the *context* of natural numbers, 5 has the characteristic that it can be

divided only by 1 and itself (_ == it is a prime).
In the *context* of rational numbers, 5 can be divided by many natural numbers (_
and result in a valid rational number). eg 5/10 = 1/2 5/2 etc

Brothers - Putting people in context by finding about

their family.

some dating/conversation examples, but the point is that people are best understood
in the *context* of their relationships with other people, An autobiography of a
famous people would be boring without descriptions of other people and their
relationships with him.

In the same way, CT emphasises the context in which things are studied rather than
the 'absolute' properties of the things that are under study.

E.g: a list of factors of 30 vs a diagrammatic arrangement of factors, which

exposes the hcf lcm structure.

Mathematicians - Putting People Into Context By Finding Out

What They Do

Sometimes a mathematical object has several 'jobs' to do. Each job happens in a
context. Some of these contexts will be more illuminating than others. This is just
like a person having two jobs - a govt clerk and a salsa teacher, say, - one of
which illuminates his personality more than the other.

A mathematical example:
The number 1 has a 'job' as a multiplicative identity - whenever you multiply
anything with 1, nothing happens. This doesn't tell us much of what the context is,
that is, this is true in many context. (_ so there isn't really a 'context' tied to
this property of 1)

another 'job' that 1 has is that, if you keep adding it to itself, you end
up with all the natural numbers. Or in mathematical terminology, 1 *generates* all
the natural numbers. This 'job' is tied up to the context of natural numbers (and
CT studies this context ? relationship between property and context?)

Online Dating - Understanding People By Seeing Them In Different Contexts

dating analogy - you meet someone at work, then meet their family/friends, at which
point you see them in different contexts, where they may behave differently and
have a different role than at work.
There are different categories of friends too - friends by life history, friends
by proximity, friends by affinity. Who is the 'real' you, given you (KEY) operate
in (_ these) different contexts differently? the 'by X' where X = proximity,
affinity etc seem to be the 'contexts' here.

Similarly mathematical objects operate differently in different contexts. Category

Theory does not try to answer the question of which context is 'more real'. (or
'better' or 'more relevant to real world' or whatever)

We study the number 5 in different contexts, but we do not pass what (_ behaviour)
is the 'real' number 5.
- In the context of natural numbers, 5 is a prime number, divisible only by
itself and 1.
- In the context of integers, 5 has an inverse, -5, adding to which gives you
zero. But (in this context) 5 does not have a multiplicative inverse. (_ note that
this property - has an additive inverse - does *not* hold in the context of natural
numbers, where there are no negative numbers)
- In the context of rational numbers, 5 has a multiplicative inverse, 1/5. It
also loses its 'primeness' because 5 can now be divided by any number except 0 and
still result in a rational number.
- in the context of arithmetic on a 6 hour clock, 5 is a 'generator' of all the
other numbers, i.e. adding 5 to itself generates all the other numbers in the
system.
5 + 5 = 4
4 + 5 = 3
3 + 5 = 2
2 + 5 = 1
1 + 5 = 0

By the way if you test all the numbers from 1 to 5, you see that only 1 and 5 work
as generators, so being a generator is a special characteristic.

so 5 has different behaviours in different contexts. CT highlights the context you

are thinking about in any given moment, emphasises that context, and raises our
awareness of it. CT does this by (as we see in the next chapter) by emphasising
relationships betweent things, rather than their intrinsic characteristics.

Arsenal: When Things in One Context Are More Exciting Than In Another (context)

anecdote about encountering Arsenal team in a bar - the point seems to be that
outside the playing field, they are just a bunch of quiet young people, and so not
'interesting' (as they would be in the context of a game of football)

In mathematics too there are objects that are interesting in one context and not so
in another.

E.g : Mobius strip.

By itself (_ in 'normal context') a MS is very exciting because it has only one

side (as you see by coloring it)

From a topology/playdough pov, a Mobius strip is not interesting because it is 'the

same' as a circle (both have one sticking-the-ends operation, one hole). you can
create a circle out of playdough, and then create a mobius strip out of it without
breaking the circle, or adding more holes.
(but) though the mobius strip is not interesting by itself is in interesting *tool*
(?? in how it 'twists' a circle to have a single dimension?) This is technically
stated as 'different notions of sameness serve best in different contexts'

the 'same number of holes/sticking ends' notion of sameness in topology is called

'homotopy equivalence' so a circle is homotopically equivalent to a mobius circle.

One way to express this (== ??) is by using a mathematical structure called a
'vector bundle'. (_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_bundle)

Imagine a light saber that leaves a track. Then you can create surfaces by waving a
light sabre around. Draw a circle in the air with this 'tracking light saber'. the
surface you make is ' a vector bundle over a circle'.

Imagine drawing a circle by holding the light saber upright, and running in a
circle. you draw a cylinder in the air.
now imagine doing the same thing, but you twist the lightsabre as you run so that,
you twist the saber as you run, with the centre of the blade remaining at the same
height from the floor, and you end with the sabre pointing downwards, you would
have drawn a mobius strip.

You ran in the same circle both times. The *topology* of the situation only notices
the circle you ran around it, so it notices no difference.
But the vector bundle structure 'notices' the twisting you did as you ran around
the circle, so it sees the resulting cylinder and mobius strip as different.

Think Of a Number

example 1: I am thinking of a number. If I add 2 to it, I get 8. What is that

number?
answer: simple, 8 - 2 = 6

example 2: I am thinking of a number.

1. It is a positive number
2. If I subtract 8 from it, the answer is negative
3. If I divide by 3, the answer is a whole number
4. If I add it to itself, the answer has two digits.

The answer is still 6.

(_ i think the point is that the same number, here 6, can have different
relationships in different contexts? something like that)

The point is that 'you can understand something **via** its relatinship with other
entities'.

Category Theory elevates relationships above intrinsic properties.

Example of this: Number line.

the point about the numbers on the number line is not what they are *called*,
instead it is that they are ordered. This emphasises the *relationship* between the
numbers. If we allow all real (rational + irrational) numbers to fill in the spaces
between the numbers, we get to fill in all spaces, and the line goes on forever in
both directions.
Now think of the imaginary number i = sqrt -1.

Since we can add i to any real number, we get another line with all spaces filled
up. But this is a different line from the real number line. So we draw it
vertically through the zero point on the real number line.(_which means both the
real zero and imaginary 0 = 0i are the same)

question: what happens in the quadrants formed by these lines.

Equivalent question: can we add and multiply imaginary numbers in accordance with
the axioms of a group. (_ == are imaginary numbers 'instances' of a group?)

adding is simple: 2i + 3i = 5i etc

but what about multiplying

what is 2i * 3i?
2i * 3i = 2 * 3 * i * i = 2 * 3 * (-1) = -6. we get a real number.
abstractly ai * bi = -(ab)

if we want to add *and multiply* (as we can do with instances of groups), we should
be able to mix real and imaginary numbers.

eg. what is 2i * 2i + 3i ?

we do (2i * 2i) + 3i = -4 + 3i.

This is a new kind of entity which we call complex number. These are the points in
the quadrants. the real number is the x co ordinate and the imaginary number is the
y co ordinate.

Even if we are unclear what these 'are', we can still add and multiply them like
real numbers. Now all quadratic equations have solutions.

e.g x^2 - 2x + 2 = 0 has the solutions 1+i, and 1-i

Complex numbers are really hard to wrap our heads around but (KEY) they only exist
because we imagined them!
REM: (KEY) In math, anything exists because you imagine it (and it doesn't cause a
contradiction)

(KEY) Representing complex numbers on an xy graph, puts them *in a useful context*,
and helps us to relate them to things that exist in real life-2d figures say, - and
so helps us to give these abstract things (_ their real world) meaning.

As we'll see later (KEY) CT turns relationships between objects into patterns we
can draw on a page. (!!)

(we'll see that) (KEY) CT works by picking relationships we are interested in, and
emphasise those.

We'll also (KEY) *generalize* the notion of relationship to encompass things that,
at first sight, don't look like relationships, so we can study more and more things
using the same techniques.