Dear AJ Philips,

The definition of number has differed with society. The ancient Greeks regarded number as the natural numbers – 1, 2, 3, 4 ….. and fractions with numerator and denominator natural numbers. They were aware that there were quantities such as the square root of which could not be expressed by what they defined as number. They called those quantities irrational meaning they were not numbers. Zero was also not a number since it was neither a natural number nor a quotient of natural numbers.

Number is a word with several meanings. Once the notion of a continuum developed number meant quantities on that continuum. Those could be expressed as distances on a line or real numbers. Quantities expressed considered off the line were not real so they were called imaginary. Imaginary numbers which can be represented as points on a plane are represented as combination of two numbers eg a + bi – on a three dimension space as a + bi + cj - on a four dimension space as a + bi + cj + dk - etc.

Number may also mean that which makes one numb.

Craig Minns wrote:

"The moral grounding in the Abrahamic religions is provided by an externalised omnipresent power called God embodied in a religiopolitical hierarchy, while in the modern scientific endeavour it is provided by an externalised omnipresent power called Law embodied in a sociopolitical hierarchy."

Dear Craig,

The only moral grounding in science is that:

1.You must supply evidence for your assertions by reason and experiment.

2. The experiments must be reproducible.

3. Data must not be fudged.

There is no other moral grounding.

String theory may become science. It is not science as yet since no experiments have been devised and no evidence supplied to validate the theory. Experiments devised to validate the theory must be reproducible.

Laws devised by mechanisms of coercion such as the state have nothing to do with science.

Theories conforming to a political ideology such as the racial theories of the Nazis and communist Lysenkoism also have nothing to do with science

correction:

1.You must supply evidence for your assertions by observation and experiment.

Don't be silly, George.

>>What is the justification for, e.g. my existence in the 21st century? Or did you mean to say, as Craig Minns hinted, that I should rather not exist (be killed) if no such justification can be found ? You see, I did not understand your question.<<

Of course you understood the question. You just didn't want to answer it, that's all. But I'll break it down into simple segments for you, if you insist on being obtuse.

You stated that:

1. [Christianity] is a philosophical orientation that can inspire arts, science and morality (as well as act against them)

2. [Christianity is] a fairy tale (mythology) to be taken verbatim by the philosophically unsophisticated

3. [Christianity is] a 'mystical experience' comparable to the more developed Oriental versions

4. [Christianity is] a pain killer ('opium for the masses')

None of these appears to me to add any unique value to our humanity. All can be found elsewhere, in various forms and guises.

You, on the other hand, are unique, in that there is only one of you. Which fact alone justifies your separate existence in the 21st Century.

And Craig Minns, you should know by now that asking someone to prove a negative is impolite:

>>...what is a justification for Christianity's non-existence in the 21st century? <<

There is none, of course, in the same way that there is no justification for the non-existence of Weet-bix, despite the fact that there are many dozens of alternative foodstuffs that have the same ingredients. But I would happily bet that if I asked the marketing department of Sanitarium to justify Weet-bix's existence in the twentyfirst century, they make a better fist of explaining its virtues than George has done with Christianity.

All

I would like to know, do you call geometry, mathematics and logic "science", or not?

If not, then what you have got if you take these out of science?

Dear david f,

>> a + bi – on a three dimension space as a + bi + cj - on a four dimension space as a + bi + cj + dk - etc. <<

You have complex numbers a+bi, they form a field (i.e. you can add and multiply them satisfying the standard rules), you have quaternions - a+bi+cj+dk - and octonions (eight of such terms). They all form what is called a (noncommutative) normed division algebra (you can add and multiply them but the multiplication might depend on which order you do it). However, there is no such algebra structure possible on the space of a+bi+cj, neither on the other “etc”, hence one does not refer to them as numbers.

>> while in the modern scientific endeavour it is provided by an externalised omnipresent power called Law embodied in a sociopolitical hierarchy.”<<

I agree here with you. The quote seems to confuse moral with legal. “Law embodied in a sociopolitical hierarchy” is one thing, imposed on (and mostly respected by) all members - religious or not - of the state. On the other hand, morality is an evolutionally product embedded individually (conscience) as well as socially. Catholic ethics refers to this product as natural law. For Christians, and probably the other Abrahamic religions, morality has also another dimension, namely that seen as imposed by God. I am aware that not all religions have an ethics dimension.

Pericles,

>>None of these appears to me to add any unique value to our humanity. All can be found elsewhere, in various forms and guises. <<

That obviously must appear to you, otherwise you would be a Christian. As for uniqueness, I stressed (by capitalisation) that one ought to see Christianity as being all these (and other) things TOGETHER, admitting that taken separately each such feature can be “found elsewhere, in various forms and guises”.

Jardine K. Jardine,

>>do you call geometry, mathematics and logic "science", or not?<<

Geometry is part of mathematics and neither mathematics nor logic (or philosophy in general) are parts of science if by science you understand natural science (but are, if by science you understand the German Wissenschaft, i.e. a systematically organised body of knowledge).

>>what you have got if you take these out of science<<

Mathematics is the language of science. There is pure mathematics, i.e. independent of physics, but there is no pure physics, independent of mathematics. In other branches of science it is not that obvious. If English is the only language Joe Smith speaks then he cannot get very far without using it: Joe Smith is dependent on English but not vice versa.

When you learned to count apples and oranges you soon learned that there was an abstract, or pure, mathematics, in this case arithmetics that was independent of what you were counting and could be further developed on its own to become useful in other, e.g. accounting or science applications, while still remaining independent of what it was applied to.