I can only speak for myself, but honestly I’ve never been able to figure out that root of why it’s so complex to me and difficult to keep track of / understand. The only thing that seems to have a “rational” explanation to me is… Selective memory. It has been a burning question to myself for so long.

For a while I just said “It’s too arbitrary and not logical” except math is built upon logic - 1 + 1 is clearly 2 because if I hold one finger on one hand then bring another finger from my other hand I have two fingers held.

(Imaginary numbers though can fuck off)

I got into programming long ago because it is logical - there’s (almost) always a reason why a computer does $THING even if I can’t tell you, someone surely can. Though generally the answer is “someone told it to do the wrong thing”. If I dig deep enough, I can usually find the answer. My life is full of so many questions that I’ll probably never have the answer to, and I found refuge in the fact that I can get the answers here.

However… computers follow a set of rules, just like mathematicians do. So for me to call it arbitrary would just be wrong. I mean sure, a lot of the rules and formulas certainly seem arbitrary to me, there’s a reason why they are the way they are and it can be tracked down just like you can track down why a computer does $THING.

When it comes to numbers though, my brain just doesn’t seem to hold on to it properly. I can randomly recall weird functions and quirks in libraries that I use - even remember plenty of arbitrary “things” like Vim motions… Yet ask me what nine times seven is and I can’t tell you what the answer is without doing the weird finger trick.

So the only explanation that I can come up for that is just selective memory. I like computers and as such my brain is willing to actually memorize these things. Whereas I’ve never liked math and so my brain doesn’t see a reason to “memorize math”.

It really frustrates me because math and computer science intersect in a lot of ways, and I’ll always be held back by this. Games for example, they run really well on your GPU because GPUs happen to be excellent at math, specifically in parallel. Encryption? Fancy math equations! Almost everything at a low level comes down to math.

Similarly, for as much as I love logical things, I could never hold the concepts of logic gates in my head. I mean, logic is literally in the name! Even when I was heavily into Minecraft I couldn’t pick it up through Redstone.

As such, I think for me, the “logic” argument doesn’t hold up as much as I like to think it does. The analyst in me says that I want it to be something as logical as “math is illogical” because that’s easier to admit and sounds better than “I just don’t like math”. Even worse, perhaps that subconsciously stops me liking it, thus blocking myself from ever being able to excel at it… And yet, here we are (or rather, “here I am”).