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grey-area 4 hours ago

The map is not the territory.

cthalupa 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't know what you're even trying to argue here.

We're not comparing math to reality (though there's a strong argument to be made that reality has a structure that is mathematical in nature - structural realism didn't die a scientific philosophy just because someone came up with a pithy saying), we're talking about if math is discovered or invented.

Most mathematicians would argue both - math is a language, we have created operations, axioms are proposed based on human creativity, etc., but the actual laws, patterns, etc. are discovered. Pi is going to be pi no matter if you're a human or someone else - we might represent it differently with some other number system or whatever, but that's a matter of representation, not mathematical truth.

Koshkin 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> we have created operations

It seems that addition (for instance) was "created" long before us.

On the other hand, it seems highly unlikely that a civilization similar to ours could "invent" an essentially different kind of mathematics (or physics, etc.)