Invented

Both

Neither

Yes

Discovered but put in invented terminology

Was 0.99999repeating = 1 invented, or discovered?

Definitions and axioms are invented. What follows from them is what is discovered.

0.99999repeating = 1 is discovered but follows from an invented definition of what (repeating) decimals mean.

Can it also be pinched/ stolen/ appropriated ? Like this really clever blighter invented/discovered some great maths, but then a sneaky blighter pinched their work, published it first and got the credit ?

Fabricated.

So does maths that is discovered exist before it's discovery ? Something that is created, invented, I assume cannot exist prior to it's creation, invention. But things can exist prior to discovery.
So is there a mathematical conundrum with what is discovered following on from what is invented ( axioms & definitions ) in that what is discovered may have existed prior to what it follows on from ?

Invented.

Mathematics is a language. It is extremely useful for explaining what we see, experience and how things works but it is only a description.

What it is describing is God's wonderful creation - at least that's how Isaac Newton saw it in Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

From our point of view, what are described appear as discoveries. In reality, they simply demonstrate how little we actually know.

Oh Deeply Dippy. You just can't help yourself can you ? Inserting the theological into the mathematical... I knew I'd seen that Pythagoras theorem before.. The Bible.. Book of Numbers ? Or was it Psalms ? Pi is in Genisis ? Does Paul explain the 0.99999 recurring equals one discussion in one of his letters ?

Dearest Deeply Dippy, I'm reading a book "The Rise of Alchemy in Fourteenth Century England" by Jonathan Hughes. It has some most interesting stuff about the selective utilisation of Alchemical philosophy by the Church during the Inquisition & career of Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel as it tried to suppress various heretics and the rising power of Islam. So your reference to Sir Isaac Newton is interesting, but far from convincing. Did you know good old Sir isaac lost a great deal of money investing in South Sea company shares, and whilst he was certainly a most prodigious talent, caution should be exercised in regarding him as infallible.

Everything is discovered.

"Was 0.99999repeating = 1" - That is FALSE!

It does not matter how many nines you put after 0.9. It still is not same as 1!

Care to elaborate ubercacher? I am interested if you have an underlying philosophy or just making a bold widespread claim to feign intelligence.

My underlying philosophy is that God created everything and put it all out there waiting to found and we have found some of it.

But I don't expect anyone here to even consider that as a possibility.

uber. If you consider maths to be "god" then, I maybe could agree. Maths is the only "godlike" thing that ever have come anywhere close to look holy! :)

ubercacher16, what worth is God's creation if it has no ability to create?

@peter, I don't think math is God. God is God. Math is math.

We have an ability to create Vashta. But math is not "created" by us, it is discovered.

the laws of the universe exist -- and humans created a system to codify them. Math is human software for utilizing/understanding the hardware of the universe. in a way.
also, always bounce in Galicia.

ishirkmywork is right.

The laws of "the universe" or God already exist, and we invented ways to talk about them.

well, a personal god doesn't exist but sure i guess we agree.

So you think that all the perfectly synchronized laws of nature came into existence by chance?

No matter what the laws of nature are, you'd expect the life that manages to survive in it to be the perfect match.

What do you mean Fluminator?

I haven't studied the philosophy of math at all, so I have no clue how qualified I am to say anything about this.

My opinion is essentially as Unstupid put it. Mathematics is a language, just like English or Greek, which is used to communicate logical arguments and discoveries. The language is invented, but it is describing "laws of nature" (in a layman's sense) which exist outside of ourselves.

It doesn't really matter *how* the universe was created for sake of this argument.

That is true President Eden.

The universe is too perfectly synchronized for life to happen by chance argument isn't a very convincing one.

1. You are wrong, looking through the argument from the wrong lens
2. What does that have to do with this thread?

@ubercatcher16
you wouldn't exist if the math didn't work. and chaos is one of the primary forces behind the universe.

@ ishirkmywork
are you advertizing another chaos game?

Like others have said, math pre-exists. It is discovered. Our ways of explaining it and using it: arithmetic, algebra, calculus, etc., are invented.

the first 50% of this debate is going to be trying to define math

the second 50% of this debate is going to be arguing over our own personal definitions

Many of us might be experiencing the good old "deja vu" with this thread. An essentially "scientific" thread starts and shortly thereafter the "God botherers" insert theological contributions that are generally irrelevant and a distraction. Ubercacher mentioned humanity's ability to create. I note for his attention that humanity used this ability to create a Pantheon of Gods and deities, and that the basic purpose of creating Gods was to provide explanations of what humans observed, experienced and pondered upon.
Humanity has created far more effective tools to serve those purposes, one of them being mathematics. This was, and should be a thread that discussed mathematics, not gods. If members wish to discuss gods then I encourage them to create a separate thread for that purpose.

The "is maths discovered it invented ?" question is I suppose a bit of "philosophy of maths", and as I wrote that I immediately wondered if the thread's initiator had some academic task and was cunningly using this thread as an easy way to find material for an essay or similar. How to quickly write undergraduate essays 101....post your topic as a forum thread, then plunder the posts for material. My contributions are probably lucky to be C- standard and whilst there might be a few "gems", there's definitely some D- dross about. But I am sure this thread's initiator, Vashta had a noble and pure purpose on this occasion, well that is what I hope.

Is mathematics universal within our cosmos ? Let me assume that there is intelligent extra terrestrial life somewhere else in our cosmos. And assume that "they" develope their own forms of maths. Would it be the case that their maths would inevitably have the same axioms, principles as our maths ? They might use different symbols etc, but surely there would be identical characteristics, and similar discussions.. they would have their own form of our "does 0.9999 recurring equal one" discussion as an example.
Hoping that helps get us back "on thread"

Bloomin' typos. In my first sentence in preceding post. Is maths discovered OR ( not "it") invented

The Major is right in that this was essentially a scientific thread. However, he is istaken in his assertion that this excludes any religious discussion. For people of faith, there is no non-game related thread in which faith does not have a voice.

The only dichotomy here is in the Major's mind. Freedom of speech means that threads will sometimes meander around a subject.

Arguably, using phrases like "god botherer" could also be seen as divisive and derogatory. I take no offence from it but others might not agree

Math... as is most areas of study from the perspective of the human mind, is descriptive. So Math is what we call our collective description of 'something' (which could include emergent/collective properties/traits) that exists.

Maybe someday we'll find the sub-atomic particle that gives 'Math' it's properties the same way we're discovering more about how gravity is generated... wouldn't that be cool. Once you can detect and measure something there's the possibility of manipulating and controlling it. Forget flying cars, how about a device that turns 3 apples into 300?

what's the point of talking about anything? the answer is always Jesus, obviously. **yawn**

Math was discovered, but we invented a unique way to interpret it. If Aliens exist and come here, they have certainly discovered math but probably have their own way of telling it. Math is universal, its just how we view it.

Well Zach, I think it's perhaps better explained by suggesting that the natural forces we observe, gravitational, electrical & magnetic are universal within our cosmos, that matter, eg the elements & sub atomic particles, are universal within our cosmos. And that mathematics, physics and chemistry are extremely useful tools to describe and understand these forces, and matter. So I think it follows that intelligent extra terrestrial species might well develop their own similar tools to help them understand forces and matter. Their path to understanding would I suggest be similar to ours..including the creation of Gods and deities as a crude tool for explanation prior to the development of better tools such as mathematics.
If there is a place for a theological component to the discussion of mathematics, then it's in the context of theologies being the crude tools that humans first used in their ignorance, and that mathematics is clearly a far superior tool, and one part of a set of complementary tools ( eg physics, chemistry ) that are superseding primitive religious belief systems.

Maths*

You're American

Pretty sure this is a bigger debate than just mathematics. Why not extend the question to the whole of describable reality? Is objective reality, that is, Universal and Absolute Truth .... real, and accessible to human minds and human description? Or is the notion of objective reality a construct of individual or social convention?

I say it's real, and that we have some limited access to objective reality and truth.

:)

But plenty of people say that it's just a construct. If so, they're just figments of my imagination and I can wish them into unbearable suffering by a few verbal constructs and a bit of willpower. So they'd better stop saying that.

Trump is math

*laughs maniacally while waiting for inevitable nuclear firestorm*

music is math:

vid about harmonic polyrhythms - turns out all tones and sounds start out as rhythms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gCJHNBEdoc

let's make some music, but it'll be a musical fractal. not with shapes, but with sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq0z-sxjNlo&t=304s

Invented.

Mathematics is a language. It is extremely useful for explaining what we see, experience and how things works but it is only a description

A perfect description ...minus the theology even more perfect . Bit like all language when you come acoss something new it takes time to find new was to descibe it and longer to agree on the new description. Math is a tool of science and abstarct there.

For example you can have minus numbers in math ..but in real life you cant have less than zero of something that is real and not abstract.

I'm not sure that zero always represents nothing or nothingness, either practically or philosophically (it seems more relational than absolute in its applications), so I'm not sure that the "less than zero of something" argument is quite on point. Then again, I'm not a mathematician, so if someone wants to chop off the limb I'm standing on here, have at it.

In answer to the original question, the principles and phenomena that mathematical symbology and terminology describe are discovered. Mathematical symbology and terminology themselves are invented. I feel like both should qualify as "math" (sort of in the same way that "history" refers to the past occurrences that are described by historians -- which are "discovered," not "invented --" and the records and interpretations that are used to describe them -- which are "invented," not "discovered"), so I would go with: BOTH.