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Depends on how you define “reality”. If reality is identical to materiality, then no, numbers don't exist. But if reality is everything that exists independently of the individual, then there have always been numbers. We only invented numbers, which are used as symbols for numbers, but in our universe there has always been calculability and, as a result, numbers and their properties. Three protons could never divide in half without a trace, even when there were no protons yet.
NUMBERS are informational properties and descriptions of reality – therefore, numbers are informationally real.
PRACTICE has firmly and concretely proven the practical productivity of numbers billions of times.
Different philosophical systems will give different answers. From the point of view of dialectical materialism, any concepts, no matter how absolute they may be, are a description of the real properties of real material objects! The number, starting with a natural number, gradually develops as a characteristic of reality. In a veiled form, the use of numbers is an algorithmic procedure for measuring and comparing different objects and systems in order to compare, copy, and transfer the properties of some objects to others in technologies, experiments, and improving a person's relationship with his environment and quality of life. Thus, the number is not worse or better than other concepts that describe reality. For example, heavy suitcase, large house, high temperature (compare: 12-kilogram suitcase, 20-storey building, temperature 39°C)
a number (as a notation in mathematics) has a plural meaning.
the most commonly used method is measurement estimation (including fractional and more complex variations of the types of numbers). measurement implies a measure that is determined in comparison with a certain unit of measurement (one and a half kilograms of nuts, five kilometers of road) .. this COMPARABILITY, as a property of calculus, certainly has no relation to reality (outside the human mind, which determines the measure and units of measurement).
a more natural form of numbers is quantities (in the form of natural numbers). quantities also mean a unit of measurement, which is a single object from among the measured objects (twelve students, five animals, two apples).. this is the definition of a QUANTITY as a property of calculus. the word “quantity” is related to “what size” and comes from ” koliko (if a face has how many faces, in what quantity it exists)”, modern – how much.
this aspect of numbers and notation is already relevant to reality, but is mediated within human thinking.
the original meaning of “quantity” is determined by the ordinal number of the last element in the counting list (eat the third apple = eat three apples, put the seventh egg in the basket = there are seven eggs in the basket … so the sequence number turns into a quantity). people stopped being interested in this primordial function of numbers after Pythagoras and his numerology, and today this area is completely covered by profanity.
this type of numbers is completely real, regardless of the person, and has its own active force.
….
but since no one in modern mathematics is engaged in “numerology”, and only use two other aspects of calculus-quantities and measurements, we can say that numbers (as we know them) are not related to reality.