[scotty79]

> Mathematics is such an old field, older than anything except arguably philosophy

If we are already venturing outside of scientific realm with philosophy, I'm sure fields of literature or politics are older. Especially since philosophy is just a subset of literature.

[saithound]

> I'm sure fields of literature or politics are older.

As far as anybody can tell, mathematics is way older than literature.

The oldest known proper accounting tokens are from 7000ish BCE, and show proper understanding of addition and multiplication.

The people who made the Ishango bone 25k years ago were probably aware of at least rudimentary addition.

The earliest writings are from the 3000s BCE, and are purely administrative. Literature, by definition, appeared later than writing.

[thaumasiotes]

> As far as anybody can tell, mathematics is way older than literature.

That depends what you mean by "literature". If you want it to be written down, then it's very recent because writing is very recent.

But it would be normal to consider cultural products to be literature regardless of whether they're written down. Writing is a medium of transmission. You wouldn't study the epic of Gilgamesh because it's written down. You study it to see what the Sumerians thought about the topics it covers, or to see which god some iconography that you found represents, or... anything that it might plausibly tell you. But the fact that it was written down is only the reason you can study it, not the reason you want to.

[mkl]

> That depends what you mean by "literature". If you want it to be written down

That is what literature means: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literature#Noun

[pfortuny]

Well, then poetry is not literature.

[thaumasiotes]

No, the argument is even dumber than that. The person who writes a poem hasn't created any literature.

The person who hears that poem in circulation and records it in his notes has created literature; an anthology is literature but an original work isn't.

[baobun]

> No, the argument is even dumber than that. The person who writes a poem hasn't created any literature.

Sure they have, by virtue of writing it down. It becomes literature when it hits the paper (or computer screen, as it were).

(Unless you mean to imply that formulating an original poem in your mind counts as "writing", in which case I guess we illustrate the overarching point of value in shared symbols and language and the waste of time in stating our original definitions for every statement we want to make)

[nkrisc]

If it’s not written down, then that’s true.

Once someone writes it down, it is.

[threatofrain]

Sure in the context that you mean it’s an oral tradition.

[dragonwriter]

> Literature, by definition, appeared later than writing.

Literature, by strict defintion, appeared no earlier than writing, but it is only a tentative conclusion from which surviving writing has been found and understood that it appeared later than writing.