Definition of Numbers

Big Mon by the String Cheese Incident
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/sci2007-03-27.Schoeps/SCI2007-03-27.Schoeps_d2t01_64kb.mp3]

First off, happy Friday the 13th. Seems like an appropriate day to talk about the meaning of numbers. This is a subject so simple, it doesn’t seem to be worth the time thinking about. If I have one of something, and I get one more of something, I now have two of something. Easy, right?

What if someone viewed the concept of ‘one’ as something other than what is the generally accepted definiton? How would that change the way they went about their life?

After watching the first part of The Trap, whose argument is based almost entirely on the certainty of numbers, I got to thinking: We take numbers entirely for granted, even though they mean different things to different people. An easy example is the number 13, which is a famously unlucky number to some. This definition has nothing to do with its quantitative definition, and fundamentally changes the meaning of this number.

I don’t have anything but questions in the post, but as I spend more time thinking about it, I hope I’ll be able to post some answers.