Was mathematics discovered or created

Answer 1

Both.

Some mammals and birds, and possibly other creatures, have a basic sense of arithmetic such as the conservation of numbers. To that extent mathematics is discovered. Many concepts of mathematics, even fairly advanced ones such as the Fibonacci sequence, do exist in nature but they had to be noticed and then identified.

Sometimes, the concepts had to be made ideal. To illustrate what I mean: there can be no line in nature since a line can only have length and no width. It cannot exist except as a concept and in that sense it was created.

There are, of course, mathematical concepts such as imaginary and complex numbers which are purely the work of human brains. Similarly, spaces with 4 or more dimensions are human creations.

However, most of what we consider as mathematics, and study at schools and beyond was created.