platonism

QC @QiaochuYuan

2026-09-05 — saved image

QC @QiaochuYuan · 8h
humans do not understand math by reasoning forward through a sequence of intermediate lemmas and theorems with an error rate. we do it by shaping our insides into a sensor for peering directly into the platonic realm. the theorems and lemmas and stuff are a writing convention

[quoted post]
Jay Cummings @LongFormMath · 11h
Btw is it a little surprising to anyone else that human math seems to have so few errors in it?

Many (most?) proofs are only checked carefully by a handful of people. This proof alone relied ... [cut off]

[counts: 16 replies, 36 reposts, 753 likes, 27K views]

thebes @vooooogel · 4h
something i've been slowly coming around on is how many long-standing seemingly intractable debates about the nature of things are mostly between people who have different experiences on those things. someone whose experience with math is opening a window arguing that math is discovered vs someone whose experience is not who doesn't understand how someone could take that position. there is a gulf of experience there, and the verbalized arguments are second to it. (maybe training can close that gulf, but only by changing the experience.)

likewise i think a lot of qualia arguments are actually this too, people who experience experience differently. (perhaps there's different basins brains settle into, and the introspective metaphysicians and scientists of mind have been talking past each other the whole time. how would we even know? again, maybe training can close this gulf too, but perhaps only by changing the experience - see meditation.)

philosophy of mathplatonismqualiaintrospectiondiffering experiencemeditationintractable debates