Cai, Zhong.  "Cultural Reflection on Mathematics." (Conference Paper- International Conference on Creativity and Process: East-West Dialogue 2007).

Abstract

The Euclidean reason and aesthetic intuition stand in two poles of human intelligence.  The Westerners are good at analyzing knowledge with logic and conceptual apparatus in order to arise at the formlized comprehending of the world.  However, the logical and conceptual analysis pushes the science culture to a dilemma.  On the other hand, science makes all kinds of material motion appear as working in the way governed by formalized mathematics system and shows this kind of formalization as common effective to all kinds of motion.  The formalization and abstraction of the material world really make human beings endowed with the powerful capability to understand and rein the world.  On the other hand, however, according to Whitehead, understanding and reining way based on formalism deprived humans of intuition for evaluating and perceiving the meaning of the concrete living world, kill the aptitudes rooted in humanity and drive human beings to live in a categorized world which is against human nature.  As a result, the dilemma leads science to plunge in crisis.  Thus, if we who live in this scientific culture want to avoid this crisis, we must go out the Euclidean fortress, to go straight forward to the lively world and real life, to restore our aesthetics intution, and to take our nourishment from process philosophy.