Humans have been making symbols for numbers for thousands of years. Different cultures developed their own symbols, but all use addition and multiplication, suggesting arithmetic is a universal truth.
Math does not have any cosmic origin, it’s a tool we came up with to represent reality; a model.
The universe does not do math. It doesn’t count the number of atoms in a teacup, it doesn’t compare heights of trees to see which gets shade. Those quantities don’t exist: we made them up so we could understand the world.
Math does not have any cosmic origin, it’s a tool we came up with to represent reality; a model.
The universe does not do math. It doesn’t count the number of atoms in a teacup, it doesn’t compare heights of trees to see which gets shade. Those quantities don’t exist: we made them up so we could understand the world.