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

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.

@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 ;)

@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.

@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.

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.

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.

@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.

@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 ^^