ABSTRACT
P: There are various distinctions or divisions to be made within World 3; for example, the division between the products of our mind as such, which are there in some sense (such as a well-known theorem, say, or a well-known song) and the unintended and as yet unknown consequences of these pro ducts which may be discovered. But there is another question which we should perhaps mention first, namely, the question of the actual process of discovery. The process of discovery can, I think, be described by an elabora tion of and, in a way, a deviation from, the Platonic doctrine that we see the ideas or forms with an inner eye: the Platonic forms of World 3. (See my section 13.)
If we want to understand a theory, then I think just staring at the theory, as it were, gets us nowhere, and to this extent the Platonic theory of ideas and of our way of grasping them is unsatisfactory and has to be reconsidered. What I suggest is that we can grasp a theory only by trying to reinvent it or to reconstruct it, and by trying out, with the help of our imagination, all the consequences of the theory which seem to us to be interesting and important.
