Question

Do numbers exist?

Answer 1

ye

Answer 2

yup

Answer 3

ONLY IF U WANT THEM TOO, AND NOT WHEN UR HIGH THEY DONT 8D

Answer 4

I don't like this question anyway.

Answer 5

no

Answer 6

what is existence anyway

Answer 7

I only said that because I wanted to be against everyone

Answer 8

I just used "anyway" twice in a row. That bothers me.

Answer 9

troll question. reported.

Answer 10

I was holding a 2.5 in my hand the other day but then a leprechan stole it so I have no proof of numbers existing anymore

Answer 11

things are exists the moment you want them, and the moment you need them
as long as you can think of them then yes they are exist, but you know the world is empty itself only numbers make sense to me xD

Answer 12

@empty shut up

Answer 13

Ever read the book God created the integers by Stephen Hawking?

Answer 14

He wrote a book for that?

Answer 15

Yeah

Answer 16

Isn't that a quote by Kronecker?

Answer 17

numbers are notions

Answer 18

i thought Galileo did , he said "God is the greatest mathematician " and believed it, Hawking was only sarcasm to write such things he dont believe in :3

Answer 19

^ i love your profile pic

Answer 20

Part of me just believes math is a refined portion of language haha

Answer 21

God created integers and everything else is work of a man.

Because of that belief he had to believe that irrationals don't exist and also denied the proof of \(\sqrt{2}\) is irrational and many other... he is really an interesting math history character !

Answer 22

talking about kronecker..

Answer 23

who @ganeshie8 ?

Answer 24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EGDCh75SpQ

Answer 25

I thought I was a platonist, but I am actually purely a nominalist to the core.

Answer 26

numbers didn't exist in my bank account T.T

Answer 27

Math is the language of the universe

Answer 28

you know sometimes i ask myself if my existence is real and that's its not some silly joke then i realize who cares just deal with it xD
so same with everything that u have doubt lke dont think too much, but when u deal with math you believe there is no way to doubt with proved things and in case u believe if numbers exist or not, deal with it xD

i only wonder why God have a problem irrational xD as kronecker didnt believe in it

Answer 29

are you saying aliens know math ? they don't not know english/french.. but they surely have access to math ?

Answer 30

What about language and words? Do they exist?

Answer 31

thats what Carl Sagan also said :3
yeah sure they do know math .

Answer 32

Do emotions exist?

Answer 33

Yes, well as it works so well, it must be sufficient enough for the universe!!

Answer 34

ikram, exactly, there is no way to know with certainty that you're not in a matrix simulation

Answer 35

hes a hacker

Answer 36

why did he chose cat instead of dogs

Answer 37

doges are the best!

Answer 38

I think he didn't really mean cat, he must be referring to his evil girlfriend or something..

Answer 39

how do you attach image?

Answer 40

there was some .crx file. I forgot how the rest went

Answer 41

i like wild stuff more :3
im a cat side

Answer 42

huh @ganeshie8 i thought the same thats why i keep this fancy pic :3

Answer 43

lol i like the way this thread is going so offtopic

Answer 44

have to go anyway, i have enjoyed ur topic @Empty dont spend much time thinking :P

Answer 45

OS really needs a philosophy section xD

Answer 46

this may not be related, but our discussion reminds me of this funny story which many authors use while introducing complex numbers

```
A foreman is yelling down into an excavation : "How many of you men down there ?"

the reply came back, "three."

and he said "Okay, half of you come on up."
```

Existence(of solutions) is in the eye of beholder - when you talk about one half of 3 people, you can't do it. But there are other circumstances where dividing 3 by 2 makes complete sense.

Answer 47

Lol nice

Answer 48

I think it's related because when I think of nominalism and this guy having issues with \(\sqrt{-1}\) I really don't share his issue. I guess there's a flavor of platonism mixed in to what I think about it but at the end of the day I believe every mathematical idea or concept exactly maps to some physical idea in some way.

If there is a mathematical model, there is some reality out there that is modeled by it.

I think that's my motivating reason for why I'm not afraid to just play with math and follow out its logical conclusions and see where ever it leads because to me it must and can only lead towards understanding something real. If it didn't then it wouldn't, because that's the nature of reality for math and physics to be really one thing.

Then again, I might change my mind some day, but it holds for me most of the time haha.

Answer 49

i heard that joke on this old calculus revisited series

Answer 50

https://youtu.be/BOx8LRyr8mU?t=32s

Answer 51

@ganeshie8 thats remind me of two men and a half :P if you know it

Answer 52

@Empty i disagree :P
mathematics is a way to translate physics and physics explains nature thus mathematics might translate nature but its beyond that, it never study the use of it :D
also as a counter example maybe virtual world is translated by mathematics even thought its not a physical terms at some points :3