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Thread: Are numbers created or discovered?

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    Quote Originally Posted by BidenPresident View Post
    Platonism and constructivism are two ideas about the reality and numbers. Constructivism says math is real only such that it can be constructed and used.
    I didn't know about that word, thanks

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack View Post
    You may be overthinking this.
    If I have 3 goats, and want to sell you 2, how is that 'discovered'?

    Does everybody here start smoking weed early on Fridays?
    In the video, Roger Penrose, one of the greatest mathematicians of the last 100 years, considers this an interesting question warranting reflection.

    I figured that makes the question good enough for me.

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    AProudLefty (12-03-2021), Jack (12-03-2021), ThatOwlWoman (12-03-2021)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    My sense is that the existence of Pi, e, Feigenbaum constant, golden ratio, et. al suggest that numbers are an abstract Platonic reality which exist independently of human consciousness.


    It is both.

    Numbers are invented to describe the reality. How did the geniuses predict something that happened?

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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    It is both.

    Numbers are invented to describe the reality. How did the geniuses predict something that happened?
    That is well said, and there is a lot of truth to your assertion.

    But nobody invented the square root of two. The Pythagoreans stumbled across it and were disturbed and shocked by it's mathematical implications.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack View Post
    You may be overthinking this.
    If I have 3 goats, and want to sell you 2, how is that 'discovered'?

    Does everybody here start smoking weed early on Fridays?
    But how did you know you had three goats? Without numbers, you wouldn't know what you had, numbers allowed you to come up with the arbitrary understand of what three means and allows you to know. Question becomes were numbers invented by humans or do they exist outside of human comprehension

    Granted a little off what is normally seen on this forum, but interesting, "cypress" gets kudos for getting it beyond three posts without the evolving into the uusal personal insults

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    My sense is that the existence of Pi, e, Feigenbaum constant, golden ratio, et. al suggest that numbers are an abstract Platonic reality which exist independently of human consciousness.


    BTW, I love how those two brilliant minds just discuss the concept with each other. No emotion. Just rational.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    BTW, I love how those two brilliant minds just discuss the concept with each other. No emotion. Just rational.
    Me too. I love watching a couple geniuses just brain storming about the deepest questions of reality.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Me too. I love watching a couple geniuses just brain storming about the deepest questions of reality.
    It's pretty funny to watch them arguing with each other.

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    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    But how did you know you had three goats? Without numbers, you wouldn't know what you had, numbers allowed you to come up with the arbitrary understand of what three means and allows you to know. Question becomes were numbers invented by humans or do they exist outside of human comprehension

    Granted a little off what is normally seen on this forum, but interesting, "cypress" gets kudos for getting it beyond three posts without the evolving into the uusal personal insults

    Well, in my experience, the first thing Mothers do, is count the fingers and toes on their newborn. So, it might spring from there. (?)
    (Yes, agree about Cypress. Does bring actual 'thought' to the Forum)

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    Quote Originally Posted by BidenPresident View Post
    Just because you're uneducated does not mean everyone else is equally ignorant.
    It is an esoteric topic, which probably appeals to a tiny minority of people, so I don't think absence of reflection about it is a Hallmark of ignorance

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    I don't think absence of reflection about it is a Hallmark of ignorance
    I do. I don't like people who think the conversation needs to drop to their level.

    And the nature of number and math is not esoteric.

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    I could google this, but it would likely be perplexing...

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    Quote Originally Posted by BidenPresident View Post
    I do. I don't like people who think the conversation needs to drop to their level.

    And the nature of number and math is not esoteric.
    In terms of intelligence, I Think there are some true nincompoops on this forum, some real mouth-breathers, and I would not lump Jack into that evolutionarily-stunted demographic.

    ********
    This guy thinks the fact that cicada reproductive cycles are based on prime numbers, and that Honey bee combs are hexagonal are not random or coincidental. It supposedly points to an underlying reality concerning numbers and mathematics.

    Humans Didn’t Invent Mathematics, It’s What the World Is Made Of

    Many people think that mathematics is a human invention. To this way of thinking, mathematics is like a language: it may describe real things in the world, but it doesn’t “exist” outside the minds of the people who use it.

    But the Pythagorean school of thought in ancient Greece held a different view. Its proponents believed reality is fundamentally mathematical. More than 2,000 years later, philosophers and physicists are starting to take this idea seriously.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/singula...de-of/%3famp=1

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack View Post
    Well, in my experience, the first thing Mothers do, is count the fingers and toes on their newborn. So, it might spring from there. (?)
    (Yes, agree about Cypress. Does bring actual 'thought' to the Forum)
    Neuroscientists supposedly suggest human beings cannot intuitively quantify a set of anything beyond four. Four seems to be a limit where our mind can view a set of objects and intuitively distinguish size quantitatively. Higher than four requires counting, and until the late Bronze age we just had not developed a sense of numbers to do anything more than rudimentary counting.

    Some stone age and bronze age human societies only had a concept of three numbers or quantities: one, two, and "many".

    The contention by some is that e, Pi, the Fibonacci sequence existed all along. Humans did not invent them as a mathematical language to enable us to talk about nature. Those numbers were discovered by us, and always existed as a part of reality independent of human consciousness.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Neuroscientists supposedly suggest human beings cannot intuitively quantify a set of anything beyond four. Four seems to be a limit where our mind can view a set of objects and intuitively distinguish size quantitatively. Higher than four requires counting, and until the late Bronze age we just had not developed a sense of numbers to do anything more than rudimentary counting.

    Some stone age and bronze age human societies only had a concept of three numbers or quantities: one, two, and "many".

    The contention by some is that e, Pi, the Fibonacci sequence existed all along. Humans did not invent them as a mathematical language to enable us to talk about nature. Those numbers were discovered by us, and always existed as a part of reality independent of human consciousness.
    "How did the Sumerian written counting system change over time?"
    https://www.papertrell.com/apps/prev...0_default.html

    Could be true. Somebody came up with something along the way to use. You know, like instead of using a hand to dig, somebody came up with 'shovel'.

    I'm sure Pi always existed. It took some smart guy to 'discover' it for our use. Kinda' like the Pythagorean Theorem. (3, 4, 5 Triangle)

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