Google+ A Tangled Rope: Numbers

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Numbers

We - humankind - seem to like, or need, to attach significance to numbers. We give them meaning, for not only what they represent, but we give the numbers themselves, in the abstract, meaning too. It is thirteen that is supposed to be unlucky in itself, not for what it may happen to represent on that particular occasion.

Humans seem to want to see meaning where there is none. It is not just numbers; people have found gods and demons all over the place: in ponds, in the skies, in rocks, in trees. Not only gods and demons, but also non-living objects are - still - regarded as having a - usually malevolent - semi-consciousness to them.

We seem - somehow - reassured by what we see as the almost gleeful hostility shown to us by the non-living world.

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