How is platonism still so prevalent among mathematicians?

We know by now that there are different mathematical models depending on different axioms, like the axiom of choice. You can include or omit it from the model and you get consistent and useful but different mathematics in either case.
And there are other examples.

How does this not make it obvious that formalism, rather than platonism, is true?

Platoon was a retard.

I'm not a fucking chicken

DIOGENE GANG FOREVER!!!!!!

PLATOON SUCK DICKS

This I learned today. There are religious like beliefs in the mathematical fields.

To believe or not to believe that Pi exists outside of physical reality. Wild stuff.

I don't really have the comprehension to argue one or the other. But there is plenty of talking going on:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/...

https://iep.utm.edu/mathplat/

https://britannica.com/science/...

One thing that blew me away about physical reality. It was that energy, in its smallest form, is not contiguous. It exists it tiny packets. It is either on or off. Not sure if the correct term, but I think its a quanta. So at the macro level things appear contiguous, and can be be treated as such. However, at the smallest level it appears digital. This seems like almost a philosophical difference in how the world is structured. Both observations are correct, but beliefs will be varied.

So I wonder with math philosophy. Are these different views of different sides of the same coin? Is changing ones thinking advantageous for solving certain kinds of problems?

Like in programming. Thinking recursively helps to solve certain kinds of problems. While thinking in loops can help solve others kinds of problems. Thinking in functional and imperative can solve different problems.

So what difference does it make that Pi exists as a concept vs it not existing as a concept? I don't quite get this part. It seemed like math was pure in a way that it can exist without physical reality.

it's still a matter of perspective. Who''s to say that reality is described by a concrete set of axioms and not something entirely more complicated that subsumes the relation between sets of axioms and their corresponding sets of true statements, which we are discovering right now?

I think that with our understanding of mathematics based entirely on set theory, it's essential to avoid the implication that the axioms of set theory are special in any way and not an arbitrary choice that generates a useful set of true statements.

@Demolishun I was wondering how monks can withstand fire/hot coals and stuff...

my roommate was always horrified but I seem to have high heat tolerance. like I can take hot things off the stove with my hands and I didn't know that was "bad". then once he told me my heat tolerance somehow went down to be able to do it

I was meditating on this idea the other day drinking some steaming hot coffee and repeatedly burning my tongue. I also will eat food basically off cookware while it's still cooking and burn myself but it doesn't bug me... the difference between when I can "withstand" the heat and not? it feels like my feeling of it "blips out" like it's on and off... basically my heat tolerance comes from how I'll feel the heat one second, and then I won't feel it the next and that causes my skin to dissipate the heat somehow... literally me feeling the heat makes my skin hotter.

here I thought maybe I wasn't meditating right, but you're telling me maybe I am!

@lorentz it’s not even about reality. Math is often described as above reality or independent of it.

One of the biggest arguments for platonism is how well math works to describe reality.

But that’s because we use those mathematical models which work in our reality. And there are even multiple different models who work in reality.

@Demolishun Many Worlds vs The Copenhagen interpretation is one of the most famous things in physics that people have an almost religion like debate about :)

Spoiler: Many Worlds is the correct one ;)

oh platonism makes sense. had to look it up

if you have it in your head, you can make it reality. even if it's not reality yet

you just haven't copy pasted it out yet

it exists but only in the "physics" in your head

it's like, what's the difference between a video game and reality? you'll be like "well you can't make video game physics reality!" but that's not the point. you don't know how, doesn't mean we can't though.

the idea exists, so it can infect other "realities" and exist. this actually delves into psychology -- since your neurons can represent an idea, emotion, and you can infect others with it. if the delusion is shared amongst many, then it "exists more"

whether you see light as a wave or as an actual color hitting your retina. it's still there. it exists. your perception of it is from different angles simply

everything exists, nothing can't not exist. negation is extremely particular. I think it's pretty beautiful tbh

I think math is actually a byproduct of conflicting consciousnesses voting on quantum outcomes

it is the "negation" of each against the other until they reach equilibrium

and the artifact that is created by that voting system, how all those votes resolve, is what we call math

but I'm not terribly good at math so for me it's just an exciting idea I wanna know more about. I think this makes sense though

... again, interesting parallels in psychology

like gaslighting is another consciousness trying to negate you. who wins?

if you say one thing happened and another person says another thing happened?

sometimes people's memories change. other times they don't. isn't that weird?! why is it one or the other?! why is one "consciousness" stronger than the other? what gives it that quality?

it's like when my roomie said I shouldn't touch hot things. suddenly I couldn't!

@Lensflare without any knowledge on the subject my gut says parallel universes is utter bullshit. I don't know if this has anything to do with MWI though. I think parallel universes is fun for sci-fi, but that is it. Its physicist cope because they couldn't get a date. So they hope in some other reality they could get laid.

@Demolishun I'd say it’s related/similar but not the same.

Copenhagen says the wave function collapses when "observed".
And what is an observation is quite difficult to specify or describe. You quickly get into contradictions.
You have an equation for the progression of the wave function and a different equation for its collapse.

Many Worlds says there is only the ever progressing wave function with a single equation and there is no collapse. It only looks like a collapse to us because on observation we become entangled with that thing that we observe. And there are countless other versions of us who observed a different outcome of the supposed collapse, hence many worlds.

Sean Carroll explains this extremely well if you are interested. He's also good at pointing out many of the misconceptions about this topic.

@Lensflare thanks for the ref. Maybe I won't be so ignorant. lol

@Lensflare why does there have to be many worlds

@Demolishun it’s ok to be ignorant. Just don‘t be ignorant and at the same time pretend like you know what you are talking about, like jestdotty does all the time. That’s the worst.
You are doing well already.

@Lensflare sometimes I pretend I know what I am talking about to piss off people who actually know what they are talking about (or think they do). Can't stop the troll in me.

Back to the topic, maybe I‘m wrong about this but platonism seems to imply that there can be only one, true mathematical model.

And this directly contradicts the findings of the last century, because we have found many different models which work and we have even proved stuff like Gödel's incompleteness theorem which makes it even more unlikely that there is some single, universal model.

@grokii what necessitates the theory for many worlds existing?

n is necessitated by the need to resolve the measurement problem in quantum mechanics while maintaining the theory's mathematical consistency and avoiding additional, unproven mechanisms. It suggests that all possible outcomes of quantum events occur, each in a separate, branching universe.

"It suggests that all possible outcomes of quantum events occur, each in a separate, branching universe."

Where does the energy come from? This is also my problem with the creation of the universe. Where did the energy come from? I hear bullshit answer like the physics were different at the moment the god particle existed. But it still doesn't explain where that came from. Energy conservation doesn't exist because that time is "special"?

ok so no reason they're just upset the measurements aren't consistent so they're guessing many worlds exist, instead of we just control this one...

@jestdotty sounds like dark matter. Math doesn't math so we create and search for fairy tales.

@Demolishun that’s a good objection. When I first heard it, I also asked where the energy comes from. But this is actually a very unfortunate wording and a misrepresentation of many worlds.
There is no branching. No new universes are created. The universes are in a sense there already. After the measurement you find yourself in one of the universes that the measurement entangles you with.

There is no energy problem in many worlds in the same way as there is no energy problem in Copenhagen when the wave collapses. You don‘t expect energy to disappear on collapse, so you should‘t expect to be required energy to appear out of nothing when you supposedly create a new universe.

This specific misconception about energy is covered in a Star Talk episode with Neil Degrasse Tyson and Sean Carroll, IIRC. Available on youtube.

I can look it up if you like.

Ooh, lets start a physics rumor. Each time the universe splits into another parallel universe it depletes the energy of all universes. This will cause a cascade effect of heat death depletion that accelerates over time. THE END IS NIGH! lol

So can't quantum physics do a lot of calculations all at once? So is it possible the multiple universes are expressed as a possible outcome, but never solidify (for lack of better word) and only one outcome wins out? It makes the fabric of reality a giant computation machine.

edit: new game idea! woot!

@Lensflare yeah, I should look at that. So I can understand what its trying to say.

@Demolishun

> Ooh, lets start a physics rumor.

If you are in need for physics rumors, there are plenty to be found on in pseudo science and religions :)
There is no lack of imagination ^^