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Would there be a mathematics if there were no mind to contemplate it?
Asked by Zuma (5908)
December 31st, 2009
This is a variation on the old philosophical potboiler, “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make any sound?” Only instead of making reference to a physical event, it refers to the non-physical world of mathematical objects. Is mathematical reality uniquely dependent on consciousness in a way that physical reality is not?
Does the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics have any bearing on the matter?
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