The Greek philosopher Plato argued that material objects such as chairs or houses or horses exemplify immaterial “forms” or ideas in a transcendent, changeless, abstract (immaterial) realm outside our universe. Similarly, mathematical Platonism asserts that mathematical concepts or ideas exist independently of the human mind. But this view in turn suggests two possibilities: mathematical ideas exist in an abstract transcendent realm of pure ideas, as Platonic philosophy suggests about the forms, or mathematical ideas reside in and issue from a transcendent intelligent mind.
