[lit-ideas] Re: Numbers

I believe that numbers are mental phenomena. Basic, fundamental units of 
perception, with no existence outside of the mind. I am familiar with Plato, 
whose influence is inescapable, and aware of the view, held my many throughout 
the ages, which says that numbers exist somewhere in a realm of Platonic 
forms. However, I do not regard Platonic forms as a comprehensible concept, or 
as any kind of understandable "space" where things like "numbers" reside, or 
belong. I regard it more as an elaborate metaphor or mystical concept which is 
impossible to pin down or understand--a religious concept in a way.

I also studied mathematics for many years as a student, and am familiar with 
the universality of mathematical "law", which exists independent of the 
observer. Nevertheless, I think that in a world with no people, in a lifeless 
universe, there would exist no idea of "number".

Numbers are first grasped by young children, who see (hear, etc)  objects 
appear and dissapear in their field of perception, and name that appearing and 
disappearing by various names, "one" "two", "ten" etc. Therefore, I think that 
numbers are phenomena of cognition and do not exist in the physical world; 
they are rather ways of ordering and understanding the world. And the most 
fundamental distinction is that between presence and absence, conceptualized 
by the 1 (one) and the 0 (zero). I think that everything conceptual, every 
idea, starts from that distinction.

Alex Trifan/ Boston


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