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Presumably, that means medalist Alain Connes was never drafted into the current war on math.
Among a number of mathematicians who think that math really exists we find him quoted:
Alain Connes, Fields Medalist 1982:
“Two extreme viewpoints are opposed in relation to mathematical activity. The first, to which I completely subscribe, is of Platonic inspiration: it postulates that there exists a mathematical reality, raw, primitive, which predates its discovery. A world which exploration requires the creation of tools, as it was necessary to invent vessels to cross the oceans. The second viewpoint is the one of the formalists; they deny any preexistence to mathematics, believing that they are a formal game, based on axioms and logical deductions, thus a pure human creation.”
Then he adds,
“This viewpoint seems more natural to the non-mathematician, who refuses to postulate an unknown world of which he has no perception. People understand that mathematics is a language, but not that it is a reality external to the human spirit. The great discoveries of the twentieth century, especially the works of Gödel, have shown that the formalist viewpoint is not tenable. Whatever the exploratory medium, the formal system used, there will always be mathematical truths that will elude it, and mathematical reality cannot be reduced to the logical consequences of a formal system.”
Antoine Bret, “ I’d say math exist” at Antoine’s Blog
Bret, who describes himself as a Christian and a physicist, offers a number of other quotable quotes on the reality of math.
The “formalist” idea that math doesn’t really exist helps account for Big Brother’s world in which 2+2=5 if the Party says so.
So okay, if math really exists, it undermines a great deal of the nonsense barked about consciousness as an evolved illusion. That is, if consciousness enables us to apprehend what really exists, there is good reason for believing that consciousness itself exists.
Ridiculous theories about consciousness also exist but, like unicorns, they are abstractions that do not coincide with reality.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
See also: The progressive war on science takes dead aim at math