Math, universal ?
Linguist George Lakoff of the University of California, Berkeley and colleague Rafael Nuñez argue that the idea of a universal math is a fallacy: Math is embodied in the human brain and is a direct product of how it evolved in a very particular set of circumstances. Similar brains, as in intelligent aliens evolving on an Earth-like planet, may repeat some of our mathematical findings -- but that's due to their brain structure and not to some kind of universal truth being plucked out of an ethereal realm.
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Marcelo Gleiser, theoretical physicist and cosmologist; and professor of natural philosophy, physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. He is the co-founder of 13.7.