Audacious, though, as you say, and excellent fun.

To begin with, Erasmus and company are, philosophically, scientific materialists—what the philosophers these days are beginning to call “physicalism”. Thought arises from the brain, which is a purely material thing. But mathematics, with its clearly eternal truths, naturally leads philosophers of math to a more Platonist philosophy in which some things, everlasting and immaterial, exist in the Platonic world of forms (what Erasmus and his friends call the Hyleain Theoric World). In this view, we don’t invent, say, the Pythagorean Theorem; rather, we “remember” it.

The nifty trick Stephenson does is use the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics to provide a purely physical basis for the Platonic world of forms: we “remember” these mathematical truths by crosstalk with our counterparts in other cosmoi that are in some sense prior to ours in the multiverse. It’s a flow from their brains to ours. So everything is all physical/material. What fun!

This doesn’t actually solve the problem for the physicalists, of course; sure, suppose we get these truths from further upstream, there still has to be some ultimate source or you get an infinite regress. But it’s an audacious solution, as I say.

I have to say I’ve enjoyed all of Stephenson’s work. I recommend trying some more. I will check the Kindle list and see what I’d personally recommend.

Actually, I’m not updating the Aquinas blog anymore; anything on that topic will go here instead.

My comments are primarily related to you Aquinas blog…fascinating writing! I’m actually a seminary grad with a Master’s of Divinity /Chaplaincy….in reality that translates to a presently unemployed Chaplain…no religious upbringing…a visual artist and passionately in love with Christ!

Your comments re: the complex content of this 16th century scholar is bang on! But his attractive readership in the 21st century is ironically, his concepts of a personally relational, loving God! Wow…what a concept,eh!

This purpose of this comment…I’m having difficulty locating a feed or subscription to your Aquinas blog. Can you be of assistance?

Fondly, Deona