Do numbers exist in nature or are they human contructs?

[Rum]

etc.

[Clinton Huxley]

Apparently, crows can count up to 3. Maybe 1,2 and 3 are corvid constructs, and humans made up the rest.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Yes.

[klr]

Apparently, crows can count up to 3. Maybe 1,2 and 3 are corvid constructs, and humans made up the rest.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... y-to-count

[Clinton Huxley]

Apparently, crows can count up to 3. Maybe 1,2 and 3 are corvid constructs, and humans made up the rest.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... y-to-count

I think we all knew that monkeys outperform the average college student....

[Gallstones]

Does this count?

[PsychoSerenity]

I think numbers are just the result of the process of counting.




In all seriousness though, I think this: http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/ ... s_theorems (if I could understand it) - would probably go part way to answering the question.

[MiM]

DIG. We have gone through this discussion already.

[Blind groper]

There is no answer. Even high powered scientists do not agree. Thus, the question is silly.

[Rum]

I think your logic is silly. If even 'high powered' scientists are baffled I would have thought it was a deeply profound question.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

^^There's a quote, "There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers".
...Yours being a case in point.

[Pappa]

There is no answer. Even high powered scientists do not agree. Thus, the question is silly.

Are they the ones rated over 4400 Watts?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

There is no answer. Even high powered scientists do not agree. Thus, the question is silly.

Are they the ones rated over 4400 Watts?

I thought they were the ones that smoke dope and run on batteries?

[JimC]

In my opinion, numbers, and all the relationships between them, exist independently of human discovery.

The ratio between the radius and the circumference of the circle, 2 times Pi, exists in the universe whether some clever ancient Greeks described the phenomenon or not.

Intelligent aliens would recognise exactly the same irrational number, whatever language they used to describe it.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

In my opinion, numbers, and all the relationships between them, exist independently of human discovery.

The ratio between the radius and the circumference of the circle, 2 times Pi, exists in the universe whether some clever ancient Greeks described the phenomenon or not.

Intelligent aliens would recognise exactly the same irrational number, whatever language they used to describe it.

Cicadas can count to prime numbers. The Fibonacci sequence is exhibited in sunflower seed-heads. The gravitational constant, Avogadro's number, Planck's constant, and c or rather, the mathematical relationships between them and which they represent) exist with or without human knowledge and would be discovered by any species investigating the universe.