Is math natural?

This is a question I've been sitting on and off again. For all the tools and advancements we've made it seems numbers are used as a universal metric. It makes sense. Numbers themself translate very well to a lot of concepts and they're a very basic asset across multiple languages. They're used for everything from calculating the orbit of planets, to formulas for essential concepts like gravity, geometry itself is a specialized system of math for plausible and theoretical shapes. My question is if math is a natural part of the universe. To be clear what I'm asking is how much of math's application to natural concepts is us recognizing what's already there versus how much of it is manmade. While math and mathematic concepts are used as a universal metric a lot of it is still systems designed and refined by man. So is math really a natural part of the universe, or have we simply developed numbers as a catch-all system to give concrete form to abstracts that are natural but otherwise abstract?

The universe is made up of things. Some of those things we can sense using various organs such as our ears, eyes, nose, skin, etc. These things are often called "concrete". Others we can sense using the mind, these are often called "abstract". The reality however is that these categories are just a result of which senses we use to perceive them, and they're fairly artificial at that, just like the rest of the mind-body duality. Things aren't concrete or abstract, they just are. A thing you sense with your mind is just as real as a thing you sense any other way, and just like our other senses the mind is imperfect and often senses illusions. Mathematics is a language that can be used to describe some things very precisely, things that usually can only be sensed with the mind. Mathematics is also a very ancient tradition of training the mind to sense these particular things and to describe/explain them with the language of mathematics, and to develop that language. The practices of calculation and proof arise from the desire that mathematicians have to be very certain they have correctly described what they have sensed, and that they haven't sensed an illusion. So, in the sense that mathematics is used mainly to describe things that exist, I would say yes it is "part of the universe".

>>68878 math is natural because things exist in quanities, and math is our attempt at understanding quanities. The "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics comes from it coming from our attempts at understanding how "many" things are

In the beginning God created the natural numbers and gave mankind limited dominion over them. Using this power the sons of man fashioned concepts in imitation of God's creation; among these are the so-called real numbers.

>>68878 You can define any sequence of symbols as a numerical system and do addition on it because addition is just using both numbers sequence steps to walk along the defined symbol sequence. Example: 1 equals suc(0) Then 2+1 is suc(suc(0)) + suc(0) then you get suc(suc(suc(0))) =3. So the symbols and using base 10 is made up choice by humans but the underlying principles are universal.

Ever heard of a magic system ¿

Math is the study of structures. And structures exist everywhere. https://wiki.froth.zone/wiki/Structuralism_(philosophy_of_mathematics) For example, natural numbers just mean a structure in which there is the minimal element and for each element its successor exists. https://wiki.froth.zone/wiki/Peano_axioms Thus if we can describe something in the world as the minimal element & its successors, it contains natural numbers. Or even I could say it is an EXAMPLE of natural numbers. Other structures are not different. All just structures and those exist everywhere.