How Our Emotions and Bodies are Vital for Abstract Thought: Perfect Mathematics for Imperfect Minds

If mathematics is the purest form of knowledge, the perfect foundation of all the hard sciences, and a uniquely precise discipline, then how can the human brain, an imperfect and imprecise organ, process mathematical ideas? Is mathematics made up of eternal, universal truths? Or, as some have claimed, could mathematics simply be a human invention, a kind of tool or metaphor?

These questions are among the greatest enigmas of science and epistemology, discussed at length by mathematicians, phy...