So I am hoping this question spurs the thought of,"Ok, lets say they didn't all exist at the beginning of the universe then how did they all come to be?". Then the next step would hopefully be that someone doesn't come up with numerical order 1,2,3... but instead the most efficient order for number creation. In which case what is that?
Added extra commentary below to help explain the question.
Did all numbers exist at the beginning of the universe?
The sensible answer seems to be that they didn't but we may need to explain why.
First, inevitably, we have to say what we assume a number to be. If you want to say as some philosophers do that numbers exist in some Platonic realm, then you will have the apparently insoluble problem that there does not seem to be any good reason to claim that we know that such a Platonic realm exists at all.
Instead, what we certainly know to exist is our ideas, and in particular our ideas of numbers. I can think of the number 5 and so my idea of the number 5 exists, although I can only claim that it exists now. However, this seems good enough since to be able to say that the number 5 exists, I only need to be able to think about it. If I cannot think about it, too bad, I will be unable to say anything about it.
To say that I have an idea of number 5 just means that the number 5 exists in an imaginary realm, that is to say, a realm which exists in my imagination, and (presumably) only in my imagination.
However, this is apparently good enough to do all the operations of arithmetic, although this takes place in this imaginary realm inside my mind.
This is fine since when I have the idea of the number 5, I can talk about it, reason about it, share my ideas with other people etc. I have to assume that the same sort of thing goes on in the minds of other people, and this is fine, too, since I never worried about the fact that living in the so-called "real world" requires an enormous amount of assumptions, not least that there really is a real world to begin with. Other people also don't appear worried.
This seems good enough to explain all empirical facts about arithmetic.
This also means that numbers do not exist outside our mind, which is no ontological disaster and it seems much more economical in terms of our assumptions about the furniture of reality.
So the sensible answer is that numbers didn't exist at the beginning of the universe, and this because, presumably, there was no human being and therefore no human being to think about numbers.
What exactly do you mean? Like really 1,2,3 ... well no they are obviously made up. They are called "Westerns Arabic Numerals" and apparently originated in the 9th century BC and there are a whole lot of other numeral and number systems. But essentially they are just nicer names for tally marks. Like conceptually you're just counting how many things of something are there and you add 1 each time.
So you can argue that "natural numbers" are quite natural and that they were bound to be "discovered". What's more interesting is that if you look at the history of numbers, you'll find that more and more numbers were added. And I don't mean large number+1, large number+2. But for example that it took considerably before a 0 was invented or negative numbers.
So if numbers used to be just a way of counting stuff then the zero and negative numbers are not just the addition of a new symbol but the addition of a new concept. Like you can easily enumerate the presence of something but how to enumerate the absolute absence of something. Or if you combine it with multiplication operations the annihilation of something. Like even a vacuum isn't completely void of everything. Or how negative numbers are technically an anti-entity that if combined with an entity vanishes from existence.
Technically we treat them as just a different number, but if you'd think about them in terms of what they represent then their philosophical implication goes way beyond a simple +1 on a tally, but encodes a lot more ideas. The +1 itself makes the assumption that there are "atoms" of numbers meaning that there is a smallest unit of something that you could simply always increase by one. But beyond that we also invented fractions of numbers, numbers that can be conceptualized like the diagonal (or square root) of a square with length 2 or the circumference of a circle, but which cannot be expressed as fractions of natural numbers or even the square root of a square with length -1 which can't even be easily conceptualized.
So while the natural numbers seem pretty natural and primordial, there are a ton of numbers that encode a lot more knowledge and ideas to the point where it's questionable whether they have been there the whole time and were just "discovered" or where we actually "invented" them as tools to express an idea.
Numbers were invented to describe and communicate the abstract concept of quantity. Did the abstract concept of quantity exist at the beginning of the universe? I believe so but im sure there are compelling arguments to the contrary. Did a method for describing and communicating quantity exist at the beginning of the universe. I don't believe so.
Did numbers exist at the beginning of the universe?
In the beginning, there would have been the same qualities and ratios that exist today. Light would have traveled at 300,000 km/sec. The elements, in the process of forming, would have the same subatomic particles. All of these relationships involved numbers, even if there was no one around to do the counting.
I am not sure that I have answered your question, but that is what I can offer.
I believe that all numbers did exist at, and even before, the existence of the universe. The following are arguments as to why each counting number existed:
0: Suppose no numbers existed. Then there would have been 0 numbers. But 0 is a number. Contradiction.
1: We have shown that zero existed. 0 is 1 number.
2: Since 0 and 1 existed, 2 numbers existed.
3: 0, 1, and 2 make 3 numbers.
We can continue this argument for every counting number. Unfortunately I don't have something as simple for the negative, rational, imaginary, etc. numbers. The most efficient order for conceiving of numbers (since by this argument they weren't created) might after all be 1, 2, 3...
