[lit-ideas] Re: Numbers
- From: AT <atri2715@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 22:26:27 -0500
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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