Is mathematics invented or discovered ?

[Human Mint]

On 3/1/2026 at 11:03 AM, UnbornTao said:

How can communication exist without language - without the space or context in which communication shows up?

"Language" has to exist first by necessity.

You are making such an evident mistake. Communication can obviously happen without language. I gave some examples but you're fixed with your belief. 

"Language" has to exist first by necesdity? No it doesn't. Unless your definitions of language goes beyond words and symbols.

[Human Mint]

11 hours ago, Salvijus said:

If you're in love, your presence will communicate love via vibration. If you're angry, your presence will communicate anger via vibration. Perception creates an experience. Every experience has a unique energetic signature. 

@UnbornTao These are some examples of communication. Where do you see language there? You can command something just by the way you look someone in the eyes. Does that enters your definition of language? No, but we call that communication. Holism is communication between the parts. A part is not the whole because it lacks the connection with the other parts.

 

[Carl-Richard]

12 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

I think you're fantasizing rather than actually examining either language or communication.

Why does this read like being patronizing for no good reason? What is being communicated here?

[UnbornTao]

On 3/1/2026 at 4:29 PM, Carl-Richard said:

I consider taking a definition as a kind of knowing. Whether you go beyond that or not is what depth entails, and it would be a deeper form of knowing. If you want to speak hyperbolically and say "language is so deep, I must say I feel like I know nothing about language", that's on you. Taking on a definition is so simple, we do it all the time. And you don't necessarily have to dig around that definition to get deeper knowledge. You can use it as a starting point.

Yes, a definition can serve as a starting point. As for its depth, it isn't that we lack ideas about what it is; rather, we don't directly know what it itself is. Again, it is often taken for granted as a reflection of reality - based on the idea we live by: that our experience of the world reflects reality as it truly is.

On 3/1/2026 at 4:29 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Communication, transfer of information, can be relatively unstructured so that you would be less likely to call it a language. Simply shouting loudly is an example. It can mean one million things. And what it means depends for example on context. Context is a central concept in communication theory (which is different from the study of language).

A particular language is different from the possibility of language. Rather than being a set of terms or sounds, it concerns the reality that allows those terms or sounds to emerge. When this possibility was first realized in human history, it brought the invention of any language along with it.

Shouting is just shouting. Something extra must occur for the sound to be interpreted as conveying a distinction beyond the sound itself. Don't confuse producing a reaction in another with communication having taken place. For example, you could be hit by a rock I throw at you and subsequently express anger by shouting - this wouldn't, strictly speaking, be an instance of communication. An additional component must be present so that you can interpret the experience of another conscious being as conveying annoyance, hurt, jealousy, or something similar.

Take away the context of language, and the shout is merely a sound. You may be able to react or respond in many different ways as a result of hearing it, but it wouldn't reference anything beyond itself.

Language, as a context, is what enables communication in the first place.

[UnbornTao]

13 hours ago, Salvijus said:

If you're in love, your presence will communicate love via vibration. If you're angry, your presence will communicate anger via vibration. Perception creates an experience. Every experience has a unique energetic signature. And that energetic pattern is a universal language all life inherently understands and is part of. 

Your experience is inseparable from what you're communicating to the world since your experience always reveberates out and others can read everything about you and emit their experience onto you back. That's a heart to heart communication. Conciousness to conciousness. A universal language of energy.  

Feeling can occur without language. Again, you assume that communication exists "out there" as a feature of the universe.

A Neanderthal may have liked someone or something - this doesn't mean language was taking place.

Loving something does not entail language. We consider love as a connection with someone or something, but care should be taken not to conflate this kind of feeling-connection with communication.

It's like projecting emotions onto animals. We may assume that dogs or similar creatures experience emotions, but this interpretation might be something we impose. You're talking about producing an effect on another, which is different from language. Like in the earlier example: do solar flares communicate something to you? Or a piece of glass falling to the floor?

Again, earnestly attempt to experience life prior to the invention of language. You're proving my point: language is a completely taken-for-granted reality. It's not. It had to be invented at some point.

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Human Mint said:

You are making such an evident mistake. Communication can obviously happen without language. I gave some examples but you're fixed with your belief. 

"Language" has to exist first by necesdity? No it doesn't. Unless your definitions of language goes beyond words and symbols.

How do you see language?

I think I made it clear that it goes beyond words and symbols. I said it is what enables those things in the first place - the space in which they arise.

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Human Mint said:

@UnbornTao These are some examples of communication. Where do you see language there? You can command something just by the way you look someone in the eyes. Does that enters your definition of language? No, but we call that communication. Holism is communication between the parts. A part is not the whole because it lacks the connection with the other parts.

Feeling something requires an additional component for another person even to conceive that someone else is attempting to convey their experience. Gesture, tone, and so on are subsets or subtypes of language.

Consider once again the exercise of experiencing life prior to the invention of language. We keep failing to do so. This should indicate how deeply embedded we are in this invention.

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Why does this read like being patronizing for no good reason? What is being communicated here?

I initially removed it but added it back in. We have a hard time actually communicating with our relatives, much less with "the cosmos," whatever that is. In my view, it's based on wishful thinking. I was challenging the place that notion was coming from.

[UnbornTao]

@Human Mint @Carl-Richard

[Human Mint]

We are shaped by language, not arguing that. So much so that the work we do here is only possible thanks to it.

If we want to communicate better then sharing examples is one of the best way to clarify and explain anything. This is not trivial, we learn with examples.

@UnbornTaoYou asked how thing are prior to language, so let me take you to a visualization. Take the example of a baby growing up in a houshold with a family that doesn't speak ANY language. So as he grows up he learns to walk, he learns to tie his shoes, he copies how his dad builds stuff, he learns that getting close to a cocrodile might kill him. All of that just by copying the grown ups. And that was possible without language.

Now, you want to talk about language then lets do so. I am glad this invention exists, it allows for a lot of beautiful thing in life. It propulses imagination and understanding. Instead of having me physically demonstrate something to you so you learn it I can just write it or speak it and you will follow it as intended. How amazing is that? What other things has that capability? Not many. And also it is so broad and universal that you can talk about anything using the same set of words. That is ingenuity at its finest. 

 

 

[Salvijus]

@UnbornTao Your mistake is in thinking that sound is just a sound, geometry is just geometry, color is just a color, smell is just a smell, solar flare is just a solar flare and we humans project meaning on it via labeling. But no, irrespective of your projection of meaning, every sound, color, geometry, smell, every element has a unique energetic impact on you. Some frequencies make you feel relaxed, other frequencies create tension, others joy, other sadness etc. and it has nothing to do with a personal projection of meaning on things. Each frequency is translatable into geometry, into sound, into smell, into qualities, into colors, into feelings, into any experience. And that impact IS the message being communicated. Everything reveberates, every reverberation transmits a unique information indipendant of any personal meaning attached to it, therefor everything's a message. Everything is exchanging energy, therefor everything is exchanging information, therefor everything is in constant communication. 

Edited Monday at 05:28 AM by Salvijus

[UnbornTao]

15 hours ago, Human Mint said:

We are shaped by language, not arguing that. So much so that the work we do here is only possible thanks to it.

If we want to communicate better then sharing examples is one of the best way to clarify and explain anything. This is not trivial, we learn with examples.

@UnbornTaoYou asked how thing are prior to language, so let me take you to a visualization. Take the example of a baby growing up in a houshold with a family that doesn't speak ANY language. So as he grows up he learns to walk, he learns to tie his shoes, he copies how his dad builds stuff, he learns that getting close to a cocrodile might kill him. All of that just by copying the grown ups. And that was possible without language.

Now, you want to talk about language then lets do so. I am glad this invention exists, it allows for a lot of beautiful thing in life. It propulses imagination and understanding. Instead of having me physically demonstrate something to you so you learn it I can just write it or speak it and you will follow it as intended. How amazing is that? What other things has that capability? Not many. And also it is so broad and universal that you can talk about anything using the same set of words. That is ingenuity at its finest. 

Thanks. This is my point, and the reason why I made a distinction between particular language (what we usually regard as language) and "language-space", which enables languaging in the first place. It seems to me that you're talking about the former.

In any case, how do you see it? It's a bit tricky to pinpoint what language actually is. Where - so to speak - is it found? Locate it.

Oh, I just had an insight: things can - and often do - go over one's head, especially profound shit, even despite intellectually understanding this possibility. And it happens to me, too. (This is unrelated to our conversation, to be clear.)

Edited Monday at 02:51 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

8 hours ago, Salvijus said:

@UnbornTao Your mistake is in thinking that sound is just a sound, geometry is just geometry, color is just a color, smell is just a smell, solar flare is just a solar flare and we humans project meaning on it via labeling. But no, irrespective of your projection of meaning, every sound, color, geometry, smell, every element has a unique energetic impact on you. Some frequencies make you feel relaxed, other frequencies create tension, others joy, other sadness etc. and it has nothing to do with a personal projection of meaning on things. Each frequency is translatable into geometry, into sound, into smell, into qualities, into colors, into feelings, into any experience. And that impact IS the message being communicated. Everything reveberates, every reverberation transmits a unique information indipendant of any personal meaning attached to it, therefor everything's a message. Everything is exchanging energy, therefor everything is exchanging information, therefor everything is in constant communication. 

Let's postulate that early humans could interact in some way even before the context for language had been invented. They could react, perceive, and respond to their physical environment without it. Something can influence your body or behavior, yet that event does not automatically carry language. Feeling, perceiving, and responding - all of this can occur without any linguistic framework.

Now, picture a sound. The sound is what it is - a sound. Your perception of it is meaningless input until it is interpreted, often at lightning speed. At what point in the process of experiencing does language enter? Without that step, could a shout represent something other than itself? For example, hearing the spoken word 'ambulancia' on its own could not conjure an image of such vehicle in your mind - the connection exists only because we already inhabit a network of language. Revisit, if you want, the quote in the picture above. That a sound can even point beyond itself - from mere vibration to a distinction - is already a vast leap in experience. You might feel overjoyed at being told that you're intelligent and insightful. But watch carefully what occurs throughout this seemingly benign and simple process that you take for granted - what we commonly call experience.

The assumption we make, steeped as we are in language, is that it reflects reality. Yet while language can describe the world, it also generates it. Our way of regarding language emerges from the very domain it has created.

[Human Mint]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

Thanks. This is my point, and the reason why I made a distinction between particular language (what we usually regard as language) and "language-space", which enables languaging in the first place. It seems to me that you're talking about the former.

In any case, how do you see it? It's a bit tricky to pinpoint what language actually is. Where - so to speak - is it found? Locate it.

Oh, I just had an insight: things can - and often do - go over one's head, especially profound shit. And it happens to me, too. (This is unrelated to our conversation, to be clear.)

I was doing a fasting yesterday and was digging this language topic a lot, having some clarity about it. But it's not something I fully grasp.

 It made me think how mathematics, music, or any other specific skill emerges from day to day language. As if they were mods you can install. They are like ramifications, when something new appears and you need to integrate it somehow. Think how mathematics didn't existed in certain point in history, same with music notation. Those are codes we develop to hold onto forms, and as memory savers. You can just leave a melody on paper and forget about it.

It also made me think how ingenuos it is like I said. We use standard words for a diversity of non related topics, and you can describe them just fine. Think of adjectives and how you may use the same one in completely different contexts.

My thinking is still that it is a cognitive stage of development. But the question of how much our understanding is shaped by it is still not fully clear to me. But shortly put, language is the ability to reference things with other things, it is the act of drawing conection between different things. That's why I say imagination is king, but why are we able to do this? 

[Salvijus]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Now, picture a sound. The sound is what it is - a sound.

God have mercy on me... 

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

It's a bit tricky to pinpoint what language actually is. Where - so to speak - is it found? Locate it.

Language is just a framework/medium through which you can express information. It's a form of communication and there are many forms in which you can communicate. Through body language, through sounds, through colors, through whatever, or through energy in its purest form. 

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

could a shout represent something other than itself?

A shout represents energy and energy carries information and information is a message. It's a form of communication and hence it belongs to a catagory of language. 

Edited Monday at 03:39 PM by Salvijus

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Now, picture a sound. The sound is what it is - a sound. Your perception of it is meaningless input until it is interpreted, often at lightning speed. At what point in the process of experiencing does language enter?

At around 150-200 ms.

(Figure represents event-related potentials in EEG recordings).

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-08651-9_12

 

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Without that step, could a shout represent something other than itself? For example, hearing the spoken word 'ambulancia' on its own could not conjure an image of such vehicle in your mind - the connection exists only because we already inhabit a network of language.

Semantics is processed at around 400 ms.

Edited Monday at 05:08 PM by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

Quote

I was doing a fasting yesterday and was digging this language topic a lot, having some clarity about it. But it's not something I fully grasp.

 It made me think how mathematics, music, or any other specific skill emerges from day to day language. As if they were mods you can install. They are like ramifications, when something new appears and you need to integrate it somehow. Think how mathematics didn't existed in certain point in history, same with music notation. Those are codes we develop to hold onto forms, and as memory savers. You can just leave a melody on paper and forget about it.

It also made me think how ingenuos it is like I said. We use standard words for a diversity of non related topics, and you can describe them just fine. Think of adjectives and how you may use the same one in completely different contexts.

My thinking is still that it is a cognitive stage of development. But the question of how much our understanding is shaped by it is still not fully clear to me. But shortly put, language is the ability to reference things with other things, it is the act of drawing conection between different things. That's why I say imagination is king, but why are we able to do this? 

For sure, it's quite mind-boggling how much influence language has on our reality. Yet it's often taken for granted as something obvious.

Science, philosophy, religion - these could not exist without it. It seems that, without language, intellect cannot exist either - just some examples. It's a bit like the graphical interface of a computer, to use an analogy.

As for your last sentence, I mostly agree with that definition as a better way to frame our investigation. Terms like pointing and reference are key here.

[UnbornTao]

@Salvijus

A sound is merely a sound. Dig it. It is made, and heard. Raw perception itself is a meaningless phenomenon. At this point, you make a leap in your mind and seem to automatically (and probably unknowingly) conclude that a sound is something else simply by virtue of its existence (occurring). But something (a kind of interpretation, perhaps) has to be added on top of the perception for it to be interpreted as a message by us. Not everything is language, nor is every sound a message. Communication is an activity, not an universal feature of reality. The conflation you continue to make is equating the production of an effect, reaction, or response with something having been communicated. The sound a pile of plates makes when it falls and breaks is not a communication. If you couldn't hear any sound at all, any given sound could carry no resemblance of a 'message' for you, even though it would be occurring. So, it is a sound prior to being interpreted as something else. Something to ponder.

We keep bumping into this - you regard language as simply a means to write or talk. I'm saying it's much deeper than communication, although it is that too. Think about it: from an experience of "no-language," hearing a sound provides one with just the sound. Don't overlook this point simply because it seems obvious. It seems to me that your use of the term 'energy' does more disservice than help. 'Reaction,' 'effect,' 'response,' or 'influence' are less ambiguous. What you're doing here is somewhat akin to projecting human emotions onto animals, interpreting expressions that resemble ours as responses to certain stimuli.

Also, it isn't just "something." Take away language, and you lose mind, internal dialogue, planning, labeling. Compared to an experience of simple presence, notice how much is not there - yet is then enabled by this invention. Language is not an object; it is unsubstantial, and yet, without it, how many aspects of your taken-for-granted experience would cease to exist? Could you even think without it? To what degree?

Edited yesterday at 02:14 PM by UnbornTao

[Salvijus]

@UnbornTao normally I would disagree and continue to make my point but I'm out of patience on this topic. I'm gonna call for truce for our both sake. Or at the very least for my own sake and sanity.

Tcare. 

[UnbornTao]

21 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

At around 150-200 ms.

(Figure represents event-related potentials in EEG recordings).

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-08651-9_12

 

Semantics is processed at around 400 ms.

Nice, thanks. My question made it sound () as if language already existed out there somehow. The thinking above may also stem from that assumption. My point is that hearing a sound by itself does not provide the possibility of language. Obviously, at some point, there was no language. Less obviously, imagining what that was like is not as easy as we might initially think. Imagining it as a mimic or visual representation based on objects would not be possible. It's like conceiving the world prior to sentience, or any other fundamental and taken-for-granted "reality."

Edited yesterday at 02:39 PM by UnbornTao