Is mathematics invented or discovered ?

[UnbornTao]

On 14/12/2025 at 11:17 PM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Hmmmm language in my eyes... appears to mediate/filter/stabilize experience (while not having anything to do with the generation of consciousness itself). But I definitely think it is an element in creating out social reality; money, laws, contracts, gender roles, job titles, borders... all exist because of shared language. It also frames perception - we don't experience raw reality, we experience an 'interpreted' reality. Language supplying categories... so I imagine if our language had 10 words for a feeling, we might notice that feeling more precisely. But if the language had no words for the feeling the experience still happens. It would just be more nebulous/fuzzy and harder to hold... maybe even easier to dismiss?

Language also creates psychological objects - ego, anxiety, trauma, success, failure.

Mathematics as a language would operate the same I imagine... the raw experience of one banana, then two bananas... we can use 'plus' as the operator. It is a tighter cleaner language. Less wiggle room and brutal consistency. Raw experience would be one banana, then another banana. It is  'pre-mathematical' - no numbers required. Even animals can get that far - my little miniature poodle certainly can. Mathematics enters in when we abstract 'one', 'two', 'plus'. Then instead of dealing with the experience of the bananas we are dealing with relationships stripped of content.

And that is the key move there - once we say 1 + 1 = 2 the bananas disappear. Apples work... fingers work - anything works! So it turns into structure...

Anyway dunno where I was going there  

Yep, after a few days of casual consideration (i.e., tireless effort), I've come to the conclusion that I don't really know what language is  

[Natasha Tori Maru]

4 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Yep, after a few days of casual consideration (i.e., tireless effort), I've come to the conclusion that I don't really know what language is  

Neither 💀

Not knowing it is 🥹

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Neither 💀

Not knowing it is 🥹

Not knowing applies to everything though 🤔

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Carl-Richard

But boss! What can I do but commit to the baseline condition of being a finite knower inside an infinite, shifting reality?

I am aware of one banana. Another appears. I see two vaguely half moon shaped, yellow, hand-sized cylinders before me. 

My new lense adds some pluses and equals in there to remove my being from the codependent nature of subject/object arising.... And begin my journey into the distortion of the true self 🫣

Edited 2 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru