Numbers have made it possible for us to construct -- literally -- the modern world we live in. Arithmetic. Calculus. Mathematics in general. Without these, we would still be living in caves -- and there are too many of us to go back to that.
Without math, we don't even know how many of us there are.
But math is just a symbol system we use for seeing the world a certain way. Language is the same thing -- a tool we use to see and "understand" the world a certain way.
The deepest "world," though, is the one that cannot be reached through numbers and words.
Mumbles
ReplyDeleteFour has arms crossed
Passing judgment.
Three dares anybody
To divide without fractions.
Two refuses to apologize
For constructing a binary universe.
One majestically squats
Contemplating the omphalos.
Zero is wishful thinking
Smiling madness.
As for imaginary
Numbers, there’s always
Somebody to mop up
What doesn’t exist.
[Disposable Poem November 24, 2009]
Dr. Mike
: )
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