Numerology

Numerology is the study of the purported mystical or esoteric relationship between numbers and the character or action of physical objects and living things.

Postmodern critique

There is also a serious postmodern critique of Number and the actual cognitive, linguistic, and political meaning of numbers. John Zerzan and George Lakoff are among the best known of these theorists. A common argument in such circles is that the Greek and Roman worlds elevated Number to a god, in part for its power to predict timing of natural phenomena, and engineer reliable infrastructure. At the core of such claims is that primates have an intuitive ability to "count up to four" using their own senses, and that retaining the counted items and the criteria by which they are distinguished from the sensory environment in short-term memory becomes unreliable - requiring trust in memory, measurements and counting systems and a social hierarchy of priests or military or administrators. In short, a culture.

Related Topics:
Number - John Zerzan - George Lakoff - Short-term memory

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Numerology, according to this cognitive science of mathematics, is readily explained by the fact that numbers themselves are a part of culture:

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"Math is a mere human invention, a systematic way of capturing the way the brain sees the world. "The only mathematics that we know is the mathematics that our brain allows us to know," George Lakoff claims, "Consequently, any question of math's being inherent in physical reality is moot, since there is no way to know whether or not it is. "Mathematics may or may not be out there in the world, but there's no way that we scientifically could possibly tell," Dr. Lakoff claims. Math succeeds in science, Drs. Lakoff and Raphael Nunez argue, "only because scientists force it to."

Related Topics:
George Lakoff - Raphael Nunez

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This claim is controversial among scientists, but the thesis has received few serious objections, and has been warmly received by mathematicians in fields, such as chaos theory, which seem to require new cognitive foundations.

Related Topics:
Chaos theory - Cognitive foundations

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Critics of these claims point out that while mathematics and numbers (at least above four) may well be a human invention, and the sharing of mathematical proofs and thus numerology may well be part of human culture, the great apes have the same sensory and cognitive abilities. Recent experiments have demonstrated that the chimpanzee specifically can quickly distinguish collections up to a dozen items. Future theorists may be forced to distinguish between objective primate mathematics relying directly on shared traits of great apes, and a subjective mathematics with perhaps no more of a basis in cognitive reality than traditional systems of numerology.

Related Topics:
Mathematics - Numbers - Mathematical proof - Great ape - Chimpanzee - Primate mathematics - Cognitive reality

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