system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Math is discovered not invented

Let me preface this by saying I do not have a degree in math nor is math one of my strengths but I find it interesting. Also it would be really awesome if a mathematician chimed in on this and gave us their perspective.

Alright so here we go. Unless you believe reality is created in our minds I think we can agree that particles (such as protons or electrons) follow laws that are not contingent upon our existance. While these laws require creativity, and insight to discover they are not a product of the human mind but "exist" independent of us, thus making them a discovery and not an invention. I believe math is analogous. 
My argument is pretty simple. Mathematical objects (such as numbers) obey sets of rules just like particles do. These rules are not arbitrary or the result of the human mind but "exist" in the same sense as the laws that govern particle physics. So why say that math is invented and not another property of reality to be discovered? CMV!
gpt
Mathematics is not a *direct* translation of the "stuff" of the universe so to speak. We're not discovering the raw data of the universe. We're observing the universe, and then we have to try to take those observations and *create* data from it, from which we formulate theories and equations in a language that we've created (the numerical language). Though mathematical objects obey sets of rules, they're rules that were ultimately created by us, maintained by us, and often reevaluated by us. These sets of rules are not "laws". They are our best attempt to interpret the actual laws of the universe.

What mathematics attempts to talk about is not invented. We did not invent the universe. What mathematics *IS* is an invented language. When you think of math as a language it's easier to understand that we didn't discover it because totally new languages are not discovered, they are generated.

Languages are something we create to help us talk about ideas or objects that we've discovered. No language fully and completely describes the object of our observation. The word "apple" is not an apple; numbers are not the reality of the universe.

TL;DR - Math is a language, and we create languages, not discover them.