Editing Where Mathematics Comes From (section)

==The Romance of Mathematics==
The "Romance of Mathematics" is ''WMCF''{{'}}s light-hearted term for a perennial philosophical viewpoint about mathematics which the authors describe and then dismiss as an intellectual myth:
* Mathematics is transcendent, namely it exists independently of human beings, and structures our actual physical [[universe]] and any possible universe. Mathematics is the language of nature, and is the primary conceptual structure we would have in common with extraterrestrial aliens, if any such there be.
*[[Mathematical proof]] is the gateway to a realm of transcendent truth.
* [[Reasoning]] is [[logic]], and logic is essentially mathematical. Hence mathematics structures all possible reasoning.
* Because mathematics exists independently of human beings, and reasoning is essentially mathematical, reason itself is disembodied. Therefore, [[artificial intelligence]] is possible, at least in principle.

It is very much an open question whether ''WMCF'' will eventually prove to be the start of a new school in the [[philosophy of mathematics]]. Hence the main value of ''WMCF'' so far may be a critical one: its critique of [[Platonism]] and romanticism in mathematics.