surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2020 3:36 am
A more profound question other than are numbers man made [ yes they are ] is was mathematics discovered or invented
One that sadly does not have a definitive answer to it although then again neither does any other philosophical question
You will be disappointed to find out that the distinction is semantic, rather than something profound.
Whether Mathematics is invented or discovered - it comes from the depths of the human mind.
So the "distinction" between invented or discovered is whether Mathematical ideas were always there - waiting to be found by anybody willing to explore the depths of their mind; or whether we genuinely synthesise mathematics out of thin air.
If you are in the "discovered" camp, then anybody who didn't come up with new mathematics "didn't look deep enough."
If you are in the "invented" camp, then anybody who didn't come up with new mathematics "wasn't smart enough".
If you are a dualist, you could trivially see mind and reality as separate, so anything the mind does is invention (because the mind isn't reality).
If you are a monist, you could trivially see mind as part of the universe and if the universe has any structure then the structure of the mind will be "the same" as the structure of the universe, and in observing your mind you are actually observing your own, private corner of the universe.
And then you can say something cheesy like "Mathematics is the language of the Universe!", or "The Universe is a computer" because minds are primarily concerned with language. Symbol manipulation/Computation.