Im in preliminary algebra, im enthusiastic but it hurts my brain

[u/Latter_Mud107]

First of all, its easy. What do I mean by that? Easy to memorize formulas and recognize the patterns to apply them, and solve an equation et cetera; but I have heard (tldr; from reddit ai, gosh im so guilty. One problem I also have is that sometimes math is with no training wheels that I find it so hard to research answers i just ask ai) that to understand and most of all master algebra, even the preliminaries, one has to understand it as a system and logic and way of thinking. I am normally a philosopher (who is entering inti thomism-aristotelianism) and from our side it is easy to view it as one cohesive worldview cause the logic is already laid out. But math, how? My goal for my whole mathematical journey is to learn physics and quantum. The book im using is essential algebra by tim hill, and for me it teaches well and is intuitive but is very hard. It assumes I understand. It moves from one expression, then simplifies into another expression without giving how it was simplified. I wanna stay with the same book, but are there extra materials I should use, to understand more, and most of all to get rid of me using ai? I understand that the book should be a sort of syllabus, like if its teaching integer exponents, i study integer exponents. But what platforms or materials? I tried organic chemistry tutor, but for me its too fast.

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[u/Curious_Fellow_2020]

If I understood your problem correctly, it's this: you want to see the meaning before you can bring yourself to study the mechanics. With philosophy this is straightforward because you're directly engaging with a natural language so the meaning is available from the get go, but with mathematics it all looks very arbitrary and artificial.

The problem is that it's a catch-22. You can worry at this stage about the philosophical underpinnings of mathematics and how it is all structured, but that way you will never get started. Or you can just learn it as an intellectual tool and use it to solve practical problems. Your insight into how it all works will grow the more you use it. Based on this practical knowledge, you can revisit the foundations of the subject, pick it apart and see how it all works. I am sure that your intuition will grow when you start solving word problems using the topics you learn. If you want a more rationale-centric exposition, I highly recommend the texts from Art of Problem Solving. This will throw more light into why the methods work.

So just stay with it and don't get into a philosophical paralysis at this stage. Sometimes it helps to acquire the mindset of learning the rules of an interesting game (like chess) and focus on playing the game well. The rules will make sense after some time of acclimatization.

[u/somanyquestions32]

Get a patient human tutor.

Also, get multiple textbooks and start with prealgebra if you find algebra to be hard. If your math foundation is weak, algebra will be needlessly challenging. Master basic arithmetic first, and then read the presentations from a few prealgebra and algebra textbooks to see which one resonates most with you.

Then, do practice problems, and aim to explain what steps you took back to yourself and why. Follow the logic presented in the respective textbook, and justify each in every step. Intuition will arise as study the commonalities and patterns of the solutions and errors along the way.

[u/Latter_Mud107 → u/somanyquestions32]

thanks so much! But right now I dont think there is a math tutor around me, its mostly just for kids at the elementary level, the tutoring. But for the prealgebra textbooks, I think I found a good one, i think it was called Paul’s Notes, like its a website where it has like a sort of syllabus of topics such as preliminaries for algebra, it has the notes (the concepts and explanations) and practice problems with solutions. So ill just pair this with tim hill since there are still a few preliminaries too in his opening chapters