Today, I stumbled into a reoccurring question I keep finding crop up on my mind:
Why do people keep espousing that numbers have significance in-an-of their own 'selves' as if on a spiritual level...? It's how something -interacts- with something else symbolic that gives it significance, that opens up the opportunity to realize a certain potential, and maintain a distinct meaning...
Why do people keep espousing that numbers have significance in-an-of their own 'selves' as if on a spiritual level...? It's how something -interacts- with something else symbolic that gives it significance, that opens up the opportunity to realize a certain potential, and maintain a distinct meaning...
No, for example '7' is not innately synonymous with a strong, righteous, and sacred power.
Similarly, no, '4' doesn't innately symbolize balance and structure and orientation. Rather, it's just been convenient to associate it (and rightfully so) with the number of directions we use on our maps for North, South, East, and West...which relate to both physical systems we came up with (how many sides of a sheet of rectangular paper are there that we can use to associate one with each direction we then give a name to...? There are 4. Same with corners...) and natural systems (as directions again go, it is convenient when one is well into the Northern Hemisphere to think of 'North' as 'cold' 'South' as 'warm' and 'East' and 'West' as similar in temperature...but probably as all go, each one leads to a different kind of terrain and place/places the further that one journeys).
Similarly, no, '4' doesn't innately symbolize balance and structure and orientation. Rather, it's just been convenient to associate it (and rightfully so) with the number of directions we use on our maps for North, South, East, and West...which relate to both physical systems we came up with (how many sides of a sheet of rectangular paper are there that we can use to associate one with each direction we then give a name to...? There are 4. Same with corners...) and natural systems (as directions again go, it is convenient when one is well into the Northern Hemisphere to think of 'North' as 'cold' 'South' as 'warm' and 'East' and 'West' as similar in temperature...but probably as all go, each one leads to a different kind of terrain and place/places the further that one journeys).
And, while I find it endearing when agreed upon by others and sent to me as a message of intended compassion or uplifting spirit, no, '143' is not innately a message saying "I love you" or anything else of the sort, without people (or any entity that can interpret that number, made of three numeric characters) creating, sending, and interpreting the message and its carrying symbols. It's the fact that someone who -uses- '143' to mean that as they send that message to me that uplifts my spirit, my soul, and my emotional being...not the numbers, or some innate meaning behind them (which they, again, honestly don't have).
No, just like 'j' doesn't -automatically- and -innately- represent the planet Jupiter, nor a particular person who happened to be named 'Jasper' by their parents, and so on...so, too, it is that individual characters in language, and the words, numbers, and/or other combined forms that they amalgamate into do -not- have any -inherent- meaning.
Why else, if you write a note to your pet fish and tape it on the non-wet-side of its fish bowl/preferably its fish tank (fish need room to swim and explore, too, you know...I bet they don't like being quarantined perpetually...at all...) does your fish not automatically understand what you mean, clear as day? They understand other symbols, after all, as do birds; that's why examples of both types of creatures use color displays as symbolic communication when trying to attract a mate. They're saying "I'm interested! I'm open to this!"
Really, why else is there clearly misinterpretation, unless there isn't innately implied meaning...? Misinterpretations exist because words -can- and -do- mean multiple things -- and that is possible explicitly because they aren't innately imbued with meaning...but they don't have anything meaningful innately communicated by them. They must be given form, and even more importantly, contextualized (ie. 'actualized') to bear meaning and for that meaning to be, then, agreed upon and communicated with ease and effectiveness.
Really, why else is there clearly misinterpretation, unless there isn't innately implied meaning...? Misinterpretations exist because words -can- and -do- mean multiple things -- and that is possible explicitly because they aren't innately imbued with meaning...but they don't have anything meaningful innately communicated by them. They must be given form, and even more importantly, contextualized (ie. 'actualized') to bear meaning and for that meaning to be, then, agreed upon and communicated with ease and effectiveness.
And, finally, with that said, no the number of single digit numbers in our number system is not significant; on the contrary, it so often has been that number systems end up 'base five' or 'base ten' because - surprise, surprise! - we have five fingers on a hand...a total of ten on our two hands.
Yes, that's why we count in multiples of ten to get to the next decimal place in our current number system. That is literally the only reason...But, it's a good one. Here's why:
It's very practical, and very, very convenient and speeds counting up in a sensible, usable way for those of us who didn't have access to paper or charcoal and a wonderfully perfectly flat writing surface, and needed to count five, ten, or multiples of five or ten, crops, barrels of wheat, coins of currency, containers, or supplies or other items of a similar type or the same type that we grouped together. And believe it or not, when you don't have access to a writing system to do that, even ancient life exchanges in basic economic trading situations between, say, indigenous villages, become notably more difficult.
Here's a practical, semi-basic example: A rather large 'village' or 'town' has many people sick in it back several centuries and maybe two or three additional millennia, ago...and I must trade you a lot of valuable wealth for the ingredients for the medicinal remedies that we know work to help relieve the ill of their illnesses...How do I, who am trading a lot of wealth for know that I am getting enough supplies for -all- of the sick adults, all twenty-three of them, so that I don't give you the wealth and end up short-handed...? I need to count the supplies out, somehow. They each need about ten mature, green (not yet red) leaves from this plant, while it still has the medicinal chemical in it before it uses it in the fall...and also each needs six recently plucked berries berries from that plant, as well as five from that plant - though those second type of berries need to be ground up after being dried, so they're notably different. Then, we need a water bowl/jug/container for each person's medicine-in-the-making, to mix all of these into a liquid and consumable form that can be swallowed...etc, etc...
"23 adults" x "10 leaves, that are mature and roughly the same size" = 230 individual leaves...? Suddenly, this isn't so simple without numbers...at all. It's time-consuming, and you, having faith in your counting, want to trade for the wealth here and go on with your day...but I NEED to make sure I have everything, and goodness forbid I lose count...
But, that's a -LOT- of individual leaves to lay out in a single pile...wait, if I have ten fingers, I can count one leaf for each finger on my two hands, and then bundle them or bag them up in an 'individual pile/bag' for use by a single person. Then, I just do that 22 more times...and once the leaves are all accounted for, the same method is used for the recently picked berries, and the dried and crushed ones, too.
...So, the numbers, and the system (or really, systems...remember, there are base five counting systems out there that don't have a single-digit '6' or '7' or '8' or '9'...or maybe even '0' or '5' depending on which one ends up excluded, and what numeric concepts existed at the time...the idea of a symbol for '0' is a lot less than 10,000 years old!) that they are woven into, are indeed practical - not borne out of religious traditions, but rather out of our own flesh and our own daily, but survival-based, needs.
Heck, if our early memories could have easily handled it millennia and millennia ago, whenever we began creating symbols for counting, we could have also made twenty single-digit numbers - the number for the total of our fingers, and toes...or, the total number of our phalanges (finger-or-toe-type-appendages). But as present-day indigenous people have taught scientists and shown those who researched them and observed them, adjusting a not-young mind to counting in a number system with base 5, or 10, or 20 single digits with their own individual systems is...unless I've read incorrectly over the results of such research, pretty darn difficult.
Brain plasticity, or maybe just what one is and is not used to and how that struggles to change over time earlier on in life rather than later on, can interfere with our ability to grasp these systems.
Reread that last couple of paragraphs again, now, and tell me....does '7' still have an innately sacred meaning to you? If so, why? And, what are you stuck on, not understanding, refusing to see or acknowledge, or otherwise confused over about numbers...? Or, has a context in which the symbol, or or seven different items or occurrences of importance, impacted and created that significance for you, through experience...? Numbers themselves aren't 'vibrations,' nor do they arbitrarily represent them or hold inherent power or meaning; they don't correspond with 'this' or 'that' saint/angel/god/goddess/figure of note/etc...and without some shared, and interpreted, context to provide that for them, they literally are scribbles that merely hold a physical appearance - much like a painting that is of abstract lines, abstract blobs or shapes of color, without actual reference to reality.
It's the beholders, and the makers, of messages who hold and who craft the meaning of the artwork in cases such as those...and the same is true of all symbolic language, including numbers.
