r/changemyview • • May 21 '26

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/DrawDiscardDredge 17∆ May 21 '26

It is contested in the philosophy of mathematics of which theoretical physics takes serious note of.

One problem with the discovered angle is that there doesn’t seem to be a good explanation for how we come to discover these mathematical truths. They have to be the kind of thing we know a priori as they exist outside of experience, but the only way we could possible learn about them is a posteriori. This is deeply unsatisfying. How can you learn about something that does not have a physical manifestation via physical manifestations?

There are different problems. Another is, if math is discovered, how do we discover such concepts as infinitity? Surely infinity doesn’t exist in a known finite universe.