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cfiggersyesterday at 8:39 PM0 repliesview on HN

Consensus may give a hint to what is or isn't reality. But consensus—even expert consensus—does not determine reality. Experts can be wrong. Most of the experts, even, can be wrong simultaneously.

Philosophy is the exercise of testing ideas for oneself in the laboratory of one's own mind.

When I test the idea that math is discovered in my own mind, from my own perspective, with my own experience and education brought to bear, I find it unconvincing.

When you test the same idea in the laboratory of your mind, with your experience and your education applied, and get a different result, that is interesting. Your result is relevant information to me. If nothing else, it's a good prompt/trigger for me to revisit my earlier conclusion and see if it still holds.

But your disagreement—or indeed, the disagreement of a majority of trained mathematicians—does not constitute an automatic reason for me to conclusively determine that you/they are right and I am wrong.

I still have my own examination of the concept, with my own supporting and detracting arguments. And the result of my examination continues to be that math being invented is the significantly more persuasive view.