Quote: Many thousands of years ago, when people didn't speak many words, before writing was invented, before there was money, before there were even words to describe numbers, people knew numbers. Although we had no names for them, we used them. We couldn't think about them or draw them.
Question: Numbers without symbols? What would the world be like if we didn't have numbers or time?
Comment: This has been a very curious thought to me since I entered high school. I just can't bring myself to imagine numbers without some sort of representation (for example, the symbol, or two rocks). I mean, of course I understand what numbers are, to an extent, but then it's strange to think about what they are in the universe. It's hard for me to explain, but it's quite interesting to think about. I mean, humans started out with knowing next to nothing, and then we started developing the idea of numbers and using them for counting, trading, and so on. And then somehow, through hundreds of thousands of steps, we went from counting to arithmetic. Numbers are, essentially, things humans made up, aren't they? So it would be easier for us to make sense of the world? For example, time is a measurement we made up as well (when it comes to seconds and hours).
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