@vnikolov@ieji.de In athletics etc. the gains are concrete and tangible. One who employs their mind in deep deliberations, in solving problems, might be able to feel the difference, if any, afforded by mathematical exercises. A Bengali proverb goes like: ‘one doesn’t know the importance of teeth while they’re well and good.’ Do people value the soundness of their mind? So much so as to consider mental exercises to have comparable importance as physical ones. A devotional song had this to say: O Mind, don’t you know to cultivate? The field [of spirit] fell fallow, which could have grown gold. […] Crops grown here won’t fail, not today, in a year or a century; so start working in the field and reap the harvest that follows. […] How do we convince someone of their potential, in math or something else? To make them use System 2 thinking. To cherish their mental capacity and the opportunity to further sharpen it. Maybe we can even generalize this even further: how do we make those in power give up petty, short-term gains, wars and so on, for the overall benefit of humanity, to start working to address the difficult socio-political and economic problems etc. Do you see the similarity in these two cases, that of realization of their potential? Posed in this way, how do you see these problems ever solved, their potential ever realized? At least, I don’t expect those people to realize and act sua sponte in this regard. It’s far easier to just deny and ignore what could have been possible, the extent of their potential. While understandable in the socio-political scale, how do we tackle this at the individual level: What justifications are there for any moral obligation to attaining self-realization, -actualization of one’s potential to its greatest extent possible? That people must develop themselves in that way for society have a chance developing similarly? @ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz @AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz @dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz @kabel42@polymaths.social @rl_dane@polymaths.social @mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org @raven667@hachyderm.io @tut@fosstodon.org @sjmulder@bsd.network