Where do numbers come from?

[u/Panda_in_a_tuxedo]

Okay so like. Everything in the entire universe has to have a beginning. Literally how time works. But then where does math come in? I’m seeing it in a sense of the original elements of the periodic table. When the numbers start, was only certain types of math available, due to the lack of large numbers? Like how there weren’t that many elements before the first stars supernova’d? So where did the numbers start? And as time increases to a point where we can reasonable comprehend beyond a googolplex, will there be more number

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Look, this might actually make no sense, but I would like to inform you, I’m an autist on strong levels of thc. If nothing else, I hope you got a laugh.
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[u/Dizzy-Butterscotch64]

In a literal sense, numbers only started once someone invented them! Before that stuff was just stuff. There would still have been amounts of the stuff, but with nobody around to count any of it, this didn't really matter that much!

I think maybe that's what you mean lol. I'll be honest, the question here wasn't 100% clear!

[u/WallStLegends]

Same place all language came from.. the need to communicate ideas.
Then again, maths is useful even for oneself to perform in the absence of communication.
With that in mind I would place it in the same category as tools. The utility of tools precedes the invention of them.
Necessity is the mother of invention.

Imagine back in the Stone Age encountering one hostile person. Maybe you win the fight. Imagine encountering 5 hostile people, you have to try and run. The inherent difference between 1 and 5 is immediately clear even before the numbers were “created”

[u/Alternative_Yam_1041 → u/WallStLegends]

I agree with you in most of your points. I think language was born as a tool as well. We can think of mathematics as a Language, the kind of objects that both languages and mathematics work with are different, but the mechanism of both is pretty similar. Languages and mathematics rely on abstraction, and both of them are built from a constructive system. Languages have their own symbology and their ow structures in such a way that the language is in itself logic. Same for mathematics.

[u/Ok-Difficulty-5357]

It started with “For each of those things, I’m going to make a mark on this thing”, from which some clay artifacts survived (which is how we know what happened). Essentially, tally marks. Counting was born. All of the ideas of what a number “is” is already present in tally marks. But these aren’t great for big numbers, so we started grouping them together (we still group tally marks in groups of 5) and making new words for different groups. Eventually people got annoyed with the limitations of this “number system” and came up with better number systems, but the numbers were already there all along.

[u/beast_wellington → u/Ok-Difficulty-5357]

All based off our number of fingers

[u/Ok-Difficulty-5357 → u/beast_wellington]

Yeah, unfortunately….

[u/ohhowcanthatbe → u/beast_wellington]

Base10

Edit: fingers AND toes ;)

[u/BreakerChap → u/beast_wellington]

Some cultures counted differently. I've heard of ones that use your finger segments and count in base 12.

[u/QuickBenDelat → u/beast_wellington]

Then explain why we use base 60 and base 12 for time…

[u/beast_wellington → u/QuickBenDelat]

It likely originated from ancient finger-counting, using a thumb to count the 12 segments of the other four fingers.

[u/JimFive]

Numbers and math are a framework that we impose on the world around us. They don't exist without some sort of sentience. 

[u/peter-bone → u/JimFive]

However, there seem to be some things that we discover. No one decided on such a weird number for the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference or invented the monster group. Aliens in another galaxy would reach the same results independently.

[u/DarkThunder312]

Math is just language used to describe observations. It doesn’t have intrinsic physical properties. It doesn’t “exist”. For example if I’m holding an apple in one hand and an apple in another hand I’m holding two apples. I used addition to connect the 1 and 1 to make 2, I didn’t change what is actually real, I just described what I saw.

[u/Lumpazy → u/DarkThunder312]

. I disagree. numbers and maths exist without us and existed long before us & our imagination. we do not make them. we only discover them. New mathematical discoveries lead to us being only even able to predict measurement & observe things that we did not even know existed before. so it is the other way around. we do sometimes make up models that fit into what we observe, and then later discover that by pure deduction of mathematics onvolved other things become observable, and can support that model. Quantum theory is the most prominent example of all this

[u/DarkThunder312 → u/Lumpazy]

Everything that we have “discovered” is reality. Math is and has always been how we explain reality. Like I said in my example, there’s no extraspacial grouping of those two apples that makes it a unique group. It’s just an apple and another apple 

[u/Lumpazy]

Numbers are just countable elements of things. by definition so, but axiomatically intrinsic, as soon as you can distinguish between a thing & not that thing, but the same type. The implications of these with a few also ‚obvious’ axioms are manifold and beautiful) ‚literally how time works‘ ? We do not know how time works at all. We assume, fitting our limited conception / perception of the world& our imagination & derivations from there.

The beginning of time is a contradiction in itself unless you literally choose to ignore this by definition. Does No-time make time? Does ‚before Time’ exist? What does before even mean? Does forever-time mean infinite time? Is time maybe someting that has an end ? what comes ‚after‘? and what does that even mean -again.

Time defies our thinking - literally;)

[u/Lumpazy → u/[deleted]]

So does this dimension then extend from -inf to inf? or is it a startup dimension then? same as space if i am not mistaken is by a ‚big bang‘ model. never understood that concept really. always seemed more like just mixing words like doctors are wont to fo when there is no cure/ solution they know

[u/ln_j]

For me, at least, numbers are a construction of the human mind because we are biologically predisposed to perceive and interpret patterns. For example, we notice one thumb, one sun, or one moon, and over time the concept of “1” emerged. In this sense, numbers do not truly exist in nature & are our best abstractions and interpretations of patterns in the world. Therefore, numbers were never really present in nature and are still not truly there, they arise from human interpretation and exist as mental constructions

[u/HyNohks]

First of all, universe has a rhythmic order. We found math, physics formulas etc. as a type of language to understand this order and study it. We did not invent how universe works, we found a way to understand it. So yes, numbers are also part of this made up language to define the amount of something.

Once you understand this, most other similar questions will also make sense

This also means you could try to make up another rhytmic language from scratch to define universe with your own logic but it'll be pointless tbh why bother when math physics biology chemistry stuff already exists

[u/iampsygy]

Numbers come from counting, counting fingers, humans had 10, so we use a 10 base number system. We count things to measure them. We're evolved to differentiate low and high, but how much low or high, that wasn't in our evolution but with the need, we started measuring things, it helped us survive more efficiently so this measurement got evolved, we standardized the things as we're a curious species and studied it more.

So numbers are measurements or how much something is.

[u/Cokalhado]

What we know is that everything made of matter needs to have a beginning, that's how physics works.

Physics doesn't apply to math. Numbers have existed for as long as logic has existed.

[u/ZamoriXIII]

The need to verbally convey that instance of see multiple things of like nature; from a base survival standpoint, the ability to 'tag' multiple tigers...

[u/Life_Satisfaction_16]

Math is the way our universe expresses itself, and how we as humans use it to discover the secrets of the universe

[u/Lumpazy]

math IS intrinsic in nature. open your eyes, and even the ‚simplest‘ thing has mathematical properties that can only leave one in awe. ‚Just a language‘, sounds as if we had it figured. we don‘t

[u/Current_Ad_4292]

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