Thread: What was the first number?

UM, the question you're trying to ask is as meaningless as asking what's north of the north pole.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

UM, the question you're trying to ask is as meaningless as asking what's north of the north pole.

Why? Because numbers are nothing more than bizarre things that humans made up?

Why didn't they just make pi = 1?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Why? Because numbers are nothing more than bizarre things that humans made up?

Why didn't they just make pi = 1?

pi does equal 1 in some spacetime geometries.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

pi does equal 1 in some spacetime geometries.

Well, in our space-time geometry, why don't we just make pi = 1? Or will it still be the case that the circumference of a circle is 3.14... times its diameter in every single case?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Well, in our space-time geometry, why don't we just make pi = 1? Or will it still be the case that the circumference of a circle is 3.14... times its diameter in every single case?

Sure. That doesn't mean it's a number. And even if it was, there's no reason to believe that some numbers "came first". Why couldn't they have all appeared simultaneously?

Do you mean the concept of having "none, more than none, many, all"?

Originally Posted by drewmandan

Sure. That doesn't mean it's a number.

What is it?

Originally Posted by drewmandan

And even if it was, there's no reason to believe that some numbers "came first". Why couldn't they have all appeared simultaneously?

My original post:

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Was there a first number or group of numbers, did they all come into existence simultaneously, or have all of them always existed? Are there other possibilities to consider?

Originally Posted by Elis D.

Do you mean the concept of having "none, more than none, many, all"?

What you talkin' about, Willis?