The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

by Brian Greene

My view on mathematics periodically changes. When I’m in the throes of a mathematical investigation that’s going well, I often feel that the process is one of discovery, not invention. I know of no more exciting experience than watching the disparate pieces of a mathematical puzzle suddenly coalesce into a single coherent picture. When it happens, there’s a feeling that the picture was there all along, like a grand vista hidden by the morning fog. On the other hand, when I more objectively survey mathematics, I’m less convinced. Mathematical knowledge is the literary output of humans conversant in the unusually precise language of mathematics. And as is surely the case with literature produced in one of the world’s natural languages, mathematical literature is the product of human ingenuity and creativity. That’s not to say that other intelligent life-forms wouldn’t come upon the same mathematical results we’ve found; they very well might. But that could easily reflect similarities in our experiences (such as the need to count, the need to trade, the need to survey, and so on) and so would provide minimal evidence that math has a transcendent existence.

This is simple human nature and the ends are by no means mutually exclusive. We are finite beings with the ability to recognize, comprehend, and communicate truth. This is based in our relation to God's own character, but limited by our own frailties. Therefore, we routinely both discover and invent. We determine which and to what extent based upon our ideas' correspondence to external reality.