Numbers and Us.
What is a number?
I mean it quite seriously. We of course all know what number are -= or at least are in the context in which we use them. We also know that there is a dsicpline of number – Maths that sits as some sort of high court of numbers – and which judges what numbers do make sense and what do nbot. But still what are numbers? I do not mean this in a abstract ‘mental category sense’ – but rather what does it means to count at all. What are we doin when we are counting? The answer is obvious – we a re locating ourselves within the world is a very ertain way. That is we are crarting within ourselves- and for pourselves a world of external entities- whose relations can be assessed directly through their very externality. That is something is one or wo or three – and that is uit.
Well maybe.
Certainly we are doing this in part. And yet there is always something else going on with numbers- something far more preson that the abstract [placemenet of an individual within the context of many other individuals. Numbers are not impersonal – not absolutely separate to us- but are rather the way through which we geneuinely locate ourselves- as ourselves within the world. That is one does not just count a nu mber- one also feels- it and feels through it – and makes one self utterly personal within it.
I mean such abstrat numbers as the number of people taking out pensions or not- or the number of people on a waiting list – or the number of years we have to live – are utterly personal things – and ramin so inspite of the use of numbers. So what are numbers> They cleary are not – or are not only a way of locating external reality – and measuring up the world – they are also surely a means of locating oneself as a number directly in the world.
NowI do not want to start a propriety argument here. It ois of course meaningless to ask which came first the numenbr as abstract entiyi I=or personal reality (although I suspect it must be the latter). But the point is still clear. We utterly misunderstan the nature of numbers if we deersonalise then utterly fropm our lucky number – from ou won ability to do numerology.
And yet what are we expressinhg is giving ourselves a number? It is clear that in its very nature we are not expressing simply sometbing in us at all. Aftar all the point o9f being a number 0 ratgher than having a name – is that one is somehow ubitous – and known through ones very ubiquity.
That is a being a number – 9ne is by defintion stoipping being ourselves- one is coming utterly against what one is not – and cannot be – and yet which – as a number one already actively is – and ,must b. To be nbered is then a way of excpressing a depersonalisation with the world – and of exspressing that depersonalisation actively within us – within being te number we are. Numbers a re then is a sense very necessary. To be a number is to be expressing a very real feeling – a feeling of not being quite ourselves- not being what we thought we are.
This feeling of course the condiyions pour entire relationship within numbers – whether for good or ill. I mean that we can of course experience this relationship as a thoroughly good thing (or us at least) . That is – the mysticism of the number one or three – can be experienced through us as a postivie divine force- with whuch the mystery of the ones of the universe emereges across our soulo – and through our minds. A numbger is thus far then uttery postivew. Of ocurse there are far far darker being a numbner. We are a nuber wrh our body enrupt into our little lives – when we fall icj – and become merely an object for mediecine to think over – a stasticis within a hospiutal ward. Or again as a prisoner utterly depersonalised one can have a number and not a name.
Anfd yet there are other ways we are numbered. Numbers can be neither a thing of unity or of utterly despair but could just a s easily be a way of locating ourselves within some kind of happy deperation. To count and to be counted in itself can express and caontain the feelings we have- the feelings of being dragged outsifde ourselves and beond ourselves. Counting then bcomes a necessary- and even persevly enjoyable way to envisage ones existence within and through the world. I ,ean for instanc if we count up our debt – and realize te awfully desaparation of our plight- that very realization is positiv in itself (or at least can be) – or at least we might feel that it is. Likewsie we coiuld think of ourselves and our follishness within a locus of numbers- as a product of the pension crisis (whater that miught mena) or a product of are bear or bull makrket. Coubnting- knowing oneself as counted allows us to normalize and locate despair. If we are ounted- and couaght up within a nbumber – hen at least we are caught – and appenerently impersonal feelings acxtivly expressed.
In effect then this leads to a strange double live of a number. In terms of the ontology of numbers a number is of course utterly separate and external. It is a merel abstract rea;lity – or a statistic to be counted – and reckoned up. Pure numbers- like pure stasticis are truelly frightening. And yet – at the same time there is something utterly conforming in being in a number- being one the the unemployed – one or the middle class, one of the poor. If ou is one of – then not only are their others- but also the desaperation the feeling that one ius takene beyond ourselves is somehow adequately an ctively expressed though what we are- and in what we are. We are counted that that is enough – we a part of en entire picture – and our desperations merwly aroise from their every externality. Numbr thwrefrtoew exists as a wa tofeel the external in us- as the internalised external.
And yet things are not quite as simple as that. If that was all number was- if it was fundamenewtally dual –0 then the wrodl would e complex enough., There is however of ocurse the added complication that our society then function in the spoace across this great divide of numbers. We both count numbers (voted stasticis, live and death) as impersonal reality- an make policies though that reality – and yet at the smne time we then feel thouse numbers as active was we are ourselves depersonalized – and then these two system feedback into each other. The point then of course is that this system works both ways, An unease we feel about getting odlers, and the entire complex iussus around what it means to to older in a society of older people – a society hre the health issues are as yet unknown (and unkoawable-0 becomes translated nito a pensions crsisi, A crisis that may or may not be real numerically (but I problbly go along within the cynicis on this one) – but respectiivne of the maths does make a lot of sense in describing the affect we we. Their might well be know pensions crisis itself. But there is something very odd and ver frightening about entiering a society were everyone is eleder- and where we know .,onger can easily an accuratel prediut our helth needs – or our physical fwlings. I mean if we are all living l;onger- how are we doing it? Are we healthier> Do e just live healthly an then dies? Do we have long illeness- and slow an d steady declines? An if we do are we sure that we want to live in a decaying body at all? These are horrid questions that can be easily expressed within the simply formula ‘pensions crisis’ – and give it reality. A feeling demandingf a number abd a policy to work it out. Of course the relatios can just as easily run in the opposite direction. One can easily imagine policies based on statics 0say monterisism – that create new personalise numbers – the being within th which then allow people to express themselves interms of that number. The point though in both cases that the number personalise and depersonalise ae not te same number. Being one of the countless unemployed is simply never the same as the statiscis that made those people exist, that act of bing a number- is not to be counted- and never can be.
The upshot is that we live in a dissconce of numbers- inbetween two kinds of numbers- endlessly demanding that they are reconciled, and equally endlells ensuring that such reconcillation I s impossible. The effect then of this doubling of realiy is to greatly expland what it is that num,ber do, I eman as we feel our dissoicnce through them – and emand policieis (which work at the statisicc level) based on that dissonace- we cannot answer our probems within these policies – but rather will create endlessly new ways to be dissont oin – and new subsequent efforts., Our sytem then works by profilarting numbers – and exploiting a gap thatis open between two types of that number. In that gap – are a couagght- and througnit we live –and create endlessly myths about what we are.