One more piece of our perplexing view of reality.
Is there a purely mathematical, platonic reality where there are no physical restrictions but only mathematical ones? A mathematical reality just "out there"?
The issue here concerns the notions of invention/discovery in the realm of mathematical investigations.
One good example of such notions was given by Roger Penrose: it is called the Mandelbrot set (see the amazing link below taken from Wikipedia). The idea here is that the set was not "invented" by Mandelbrot but was discovered, just like, for example, the CMB radiation or the "planet" Pluto. The set existed (was just "out there") long before anyone knew about it. Also, contrary to what many people believe, the Mandelbrot is not computer "animal". It's simply generated by the iteration of a complex polynomial.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Mandelbrot_color_zoom.gif
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