Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered?

[Yali]

Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? @Leo Gura

[Gesundheit2]

Is the English language invented or discovered?

[Benton]

Invented and discovered are more similar than you would think.

Take for example. A dinosaur is discovered. And as we go, everything we "discover" about said dinosaur, is "invented". It isn't anything until we make something out of it.

Within infinity, all is one.

[BenG]

I was a math major in college.

I say invented.

Edited May 23, 2022 by BenG

[Mulky]

I guess really everything is discovered and not invented.  Before phones were invented they already existed somewhere, the exact combination of things coming together to be a cell phone was discovered.  So invented would be a smaller designation within discovery.  Like the way most people use the word "natural" is a smaller designation within the more absolute definition of "natural" which would be everything.

[Benton]

@Mulky A phone is imagined. The way you discover a phone is by imagining it.

[Preety_India]

Discovered 

You can't invent something that already exists 

 

[Batman]

1 hour ago, Preety_India said:

Discovered 

You can't invent something that already exists 

 

It doesn't exist. It is invented by the human mind. Math is a language, and language exists only in mind. Do you see any 1, 2, +, = in your perception? No. Those are symbols that operate as language. They represent a thing that they are not. 

[Preety_India]

@Batman language is used to describe what exists. 

 

[Jodistrict]

Traditionally,  patent laws have considered mathematics to be a discovery, and thus mathematics can’t be patented.  However, eventually US law allowed for the patenting of an algorithm, as long as it was embedded in physical form, i.e. a computer.   However, cognitively, mathematics can be highly creative, and seems to be an invention.

[axiom]

5 hours ago, Yali said:

Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? @Leo Gura

Mathematics is a very, very, VERY stubborn layer of glue that is almost impossible to remove, but it is not the substrate.

[Michael Jackson]

Absolutely speaking, everything is an invention. Even the physical laws of this universe are invented, by your true Self.

Relatively speaking math is a normal language, just like english for example (I studied a good amount of math at college). The language of math could look very differently if we designed it in a different way.

[JosephKnecht]

Maybe the moment of discovery is the moment of invention. 

Maybe. 

[RMQualtrough]

3 hours ago, Batman said:

It doesn't exist. It is invented by the human mind. Math is a language, and language exists only in mind. Do you see any 1, 2, +, = in your perception? No. Those are symbols that operate as language. They represent a thing that they are not. 

The objects you see conform to VERY precise mathematical patterns. Especially the geometry you see while tripping, see all those eyes forming that flower shape? Or the shifting shapes...

Like science, math is good at describing how things behave, but also arranged. They remain good for those purposes...

[Batman]

33 minutes ago, JosephKnecht said:

Maybe the moment of discovery is the moment of invention. 

Maybe. 

Why maybe? For sure. When you "discover" something, you are actually creating (inventing) a distinction of that thing. That distinction never existed in your experience until you created it. When it comes to the conceptual domain, where all forms of language reside, it is even more obvious that it is a distinction created by mind/intellect.

 

3 hours ago, Preety_India said:

@Batman language is used to describe what exists. 

 

Not exactly. Language is referring to something it is not, which is what I meant when I wrote that the symbols that constitute language are representation of something that the symbol itself isn't. For example, the symbol of infinity (∞) might point to infinity, but it will never describe or represent infinity fully, because a symbol is limited and Infinity has no limits or fixation. This can also apply to finite symbols, for example the number 2 doesn't fully represent every 2 units in existence. So, in a way we can say that language always creates misrepresentation.

 

6 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

The objects you see conform to VERY precise mathematical patterns. Especially the geometry you see while tripping, see all those eyes forming that flower shape? Or the shifting shapes...

Like science, math is good at describing how things behave, but also arranged. They remain good for those purposes...

The only thing you are saying here is that math is a very precise language to represent reality. Languages may or may not be highly accurate, but they are still invented in the mind. So it is a game of creating the most accurate representation. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Batman

[Preety_India]

Just now, Batman said:

Not exactly. Language is referring to something it is not, which is what I meant when I wrote that the symbols that constitute language are representation of something that the symbol itself isn't. For example, the symbol of infinity (∞) might point to infinity, but it will never describe or represent infinity fully, because a symbol is limited and Infinity has no limits or fixation. So, in a way we can say that language always creates misrepresentation.

But infinity exists 

[Batman]

1 minute ago, Preety_India said:

But infinity exists 

No, it doesn't. How could it exist? In order for something to exist, it must have some limitation or form. If Infinity had some form or limitation, it would be finite and not infinite. 

[RMQualtrough]

@Batman If you said created that would be different in meaning. It's not invented... But literally everything is created.

[zurew]

Language is something that is invented. The purpose of any language is to represent something. That something can "exist"  , however the pointer (the language used) is invented.

You can attach any meaning to any symbol. The underlying meaning that matters, not the symbol. The symbol is just a pointer or a tool to point to some underlying meaning/factor. But the symbol itself can't represent fully the underlying structure,  just in a finite way.

Edited May 23, 2022 by zurew

[Batman]

3 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

@Batman If you said created that would be different in meaning. It's not invented... But literally everything is created.

In the context of forming language using the mind, created and invented are the same.