Something It Is Like to Do Math
The author explores the subjective experience of doing mathematics, describing it as "reading" mathematical structures through felt constraints rather than just manipulating symbols.
Background
David Chalmers famously coined the "hard problem of consciousness"—how and why physical brain processes give rise to subjective experience ("what it is like" to be something). This article explores whether doing math has a distinctive subjective feel (a "what-it's-like-ness") that differs from other reasoning, engaging with philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and mathematical practice. The author, J.T. Peterson, writes at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science. Readers should know the phrase "what it is like" comes from Thomas Nagel's 1974 essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"—the canonical formulation of the first-person perspective problem.