Before Galileo, philosophers followed Aristotle's example in looking for causes and reasons in nature. Such questions and explanations seem reasonable. But Galileo changed the approach. The amazing fact is that the physical universe, for all its great diversity, can be described with precision and power in terms of a small number of equations. This question immediately prompts others.
Some philosophers argue that mathematics is the creation of mind.
All the truths that follow are the logical consequences of these definitions. A change of definitions produces a change in the resulting truths, as witness Alice's version of multiplication as she falls down the rabbit-hole. A solution is to recognise that in describing the world mathematically, we deliberately take account only of its measurable aspects, only of what can be stated in quantitative terms. This argument has much plausibility. This powerfully suggests that mathematics captures truths about the world, and that we would all do well to understand it better therefore.