"We Think That We Think Clearly, But That's Only Because We Don't Think Clearly": Mathematics, Mind, and the Human World

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a dialogue between Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein, where Tagore argued that our knowledge is essentially human, while Einstein maintained that some kinds of knowledge are more objective. Arguments by Davis and Hersh concerning the nature of mathematics support the idea of mathematical truth being a human construct. It may further be argued that the scientific theories we arrive at are very much a result of the particular mathematical and experimental tools that we use. There may however be a deeper kind of knowledge that science has yet to understand.

arXiv comment9 pages. Based on a talk given at the conference "Home and the world: Rabindranath Tagore at the End of the Millennium", Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, 1998. v4: improved referencing. Rabindanath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, ed. P C Hogan and L Pandit, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2003, p.107, ISBN 0-8386-3980-1. v5: spelling corrected