No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.

But I think it is a serious issue to wonder about the other platonic absolutes of say beauty and morality.

Intelligence cannot be present without understanding. No computer has any awareness of what it does.

I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance.

This book is about physics and its about physics and its relationship with mathematics and how they seem to be intimately related and to what extent can you explore this relationship and trust it.

As you say, the way string theory requires all these extra dimensions and this comes from certain consistency requirements about how string should behave and so on.

If you didn’t have any conscious beings in the world, there really wouldn’t be morality but with consciousness that you have it.