Is mathematics a natural part of existence or Invention of man?

Question

Give examples of how it would exist without the realisation of a human.

I'm not assuming any association with humans and intelligence.

What are the functions of mathematics in nature tho, if humans, say, had to concept of it?

simplysha... 'The greatest no. in existence' Beautiful. Could be the greatest realisation in existence. The power of one.

richardal...I reckon there'd be one person standing if i was in the desert and saw you with 2 canteens of water and me having none.

Great answers all round. I'll leave to nature to decide who's no. 1.

Answer 1

It is an invention of man - the number system is at least.

The axioms that define mathematics were invented by man as a way of describing the world in the simplest and most absolute way possible.

there are eight planets and there still will be without mathematics, but we wouldn't be able to describe them as "8 planets" without mathematics.

Putting 2 grapes and 2 grapes together would make 4 grapes, but 2+2=4 is our way of describing that.

Answer 2

Mathematics could be called a human invention but it is really the observation of the world through calculation and its application to problems mankind has experienced.There are a number of books on the history of mathematics. One of the best was written many years ago by Professor Lancelot Hogben. It is called "Mathematics for the Million" and there is a review on the website listed below. It starts at the very earliest prehistoric times when humanity was trying to work out a calendar so that they knew when to plant and harvest crops, then explores the Ancient Egyptians' need to develop and learn geometry for building. It also examines the systems developed by the Mayans in Central America who were incredible astronomers and calculated the length of the year more accurately than we could do before computers and satellites were created. It shows why Roman numerals could not be used for calculation, why the Indian invention of zero and the work done by the Greeks and Arabs have given us our present numbering system. It looks at Napier's invention of logarithms too. It is a tour de force. The book is still available on Amazon, etc.

Answer 3

The answer is both! Mathematicians have invented many procedures - algebra, the calculus etc to study and the natural and physical worlds. However, in the natural and physical world there are many objects and phenomena that illustrate some of these very inventions. For example, a starfish shows lateral and rotational symmetry; crystals follow the Greek's platonic solids;some galaxies and tornado's are natural spirals; radioactive decay and bacterial growth have precise mathematical description; vibrating strings and ratios ...
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Answer 4

It is both. Mathematics as you understand it is really a language that describes something. The equations have meaning because we give them meaning.we decided a plus sign means plus for instance. In this respect, math is an invention like a language. What math describes, the arc of a projectile, or the relationship between mass, gravity, and acceleration simply exist. These things are the natural part, which the first part describes.

Answer 5

Mathematics is what's is known as a convention. A group of people get together and agree that the symbol 1 will mean a single rock and that the symbol 2 will mean a single rock and a single rock. And it goes on from there. If you are not conditioned in the convention, mathematics has no empirical meaning. An alien landing here, being conditioned in his own convention, would be clueless. 2 + 2 = ?

Answer 6

Its an interesting philosophical question, and one that the glib answers here do no justice to. To get to grips with it you need to know a lot more about how the fundamentals of maths work.

Try reading Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality". The heavy math chapters at the start of this book tackle this question at some length.

Answer 7

It is a fundamental natural law. Don't confuse the laws with the theories. Although many theories are very well founded and extremely unlikely to be disproven, they are still theories. Simple example, you take two light bulbs, put them in a bag, add two more, you have four, every single time. Before humans: take two planets, add two more, you have four, every time, wether a human is present to see it or not. Man discovered math, not invented.

Answer 8

We can have a single unified concept of all that is there, or here, call it existence. According to this concept all things in existence contain one or more other things as their specific characteristics to make things in character what they are, or known to an external observer, but existence contains all things. Then we can say that there is existence, and there are forms of existence – things, objects and notions.

Existence is singular that cannot be counted just recognised – it is, or it is not. There is not third option. By their essence things exist or they simply don’t. And since things are things they therefore exist and they are known as things due to specific characteristic that they have.

Forms are specific due to specific characteristics they have that make then observable. There are no two things as absolutely similar. There is no complete equivalence, and all variations are transitive and gradual. We have to recognise one thing from the other by carefully counting them into their respective order.

Or Mathematics is a precise way to observe all things in existence starting from existence itself. Mathematics is not invented by us neither it exists automatically in nature, it is a precise realisation of the fact of our world as we see them. Fundamental truth about existence for example is an absolute identity, the number one? The identity of number one contains two minus one; zero plus one, or one times one, along with many other things. What is the character of one that contains countless or limitless characteristics a character? This character is the number one itself. Why someone had to count number one at the start? It was recognition of singular existence itself. The rapid sequence of numbers that followed all contain number one as the base, or basis.

If we consider the case of number one further, and do not allow myself any liberty to branch out, I can see that one is all that is there. If we assume that there is an ultimate character in the existence. A character that has no variation like the concept of the Moon, and that requires nothing else to become what it is.

To count one is to make possible and probable to count two, to count two to make possible the count of number three and so on. There is no end to the sequence of numbers once we can count number on. All other numbers will have one as an essence or essential character but with added characteristics making them what they are – a variant character, or a relevance. We cannot know hundred if we do not know one. All one is not is not a null or zero, which is its perfect symmetrical opposite. But one remains the greatest number in existence. This is what we can see in Mathematics.

Answer 9

I read an article recently about a tribe of people whose number system was one, two, many. Obviously they had no concept of numbers beyond this, no operations, (+, - x or /) and had no need of them or they wouldnt have survived. mathematics is an invention of man, orginially philosophers were also mathematicians and they maths they used was an effort to make senseof the world.

Answer 10

How can we percieve anything to exist with out the realisation of man. Mathmatics are seen in nature from snow flakes to diamonds. Because man comprehended this does not detract away from the fact that it was born of natural existence.