Wouldn’t the more basic term “abstraction” be more explanatory, than “abstract object?”

We abstract properties and qualities from the larger reality. Basically reductionism. Often these qualities, such as numbers and colors, are the same as, or similar to qualities we abstract from other aspects of reality. They are not “objects,” so much as properties.

The problem seems to be that some people assume this apparent order is indicative of the deeper structure of nature, rather than emergent from the ways it expresses itself. It it a map of the territory, or foundational to the territory?

We should be careful when assuming anything is more than it presents. For example, epicycles were brilliant mathematical constructions of our perception of the universe, but when it was assumed this order was a direct expression of the physical reality, as crystalline spheres and a cosmic clockworks, it was a mistake. Order can be emergent.

I think a current similar assumption is the construct of spacetime as a physical explanation for the math of General Relativity. Time is being reduced to measures of duration and correlated with measures of distance, but that still is based on the narrative flow, from past to future, when the underlaying reality is change turning future to past. Potential, actual, residual.

Duration is the present, as events come and go.

This geometric modeling of time can’t even adequately explain why it is asymmetric, but time, aka frequency, is a measure of activity, which is inertial. The earth turns one direction, not both.

There is no physical dimension of time, because the present consumes the past, in order to be informed by it, aka causality and conservation of energy.

Different clocks run at different rates, because they are separate actions. Think metabolism and frequencies.

The present is not a point between past and future, but the state of the energy(conserved) manifesting the changing forms. It is these changing forms which create the effect of time.

Time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, etc. Ideal gas laws can be used to correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but that doesn’t make them the 5th and 6th dimensions of space.

Nor are three dimensions foundational to space, as they are the mapping device of the xyz coordinate system. It would be like thinking longutude, latitude and altitude are fundamental to the biosphere of the planet, rather than a mapping device.

Sometimes our tools, from narrative, to math, to money, become our gods.