Two

In response to Chris Vitiello’s question: If you were going to work with a number, what number would it be, and why? I wrote:

I think the number two (2) is a really interesting number which has a lot of depth and potential. It seems like a really common number (as numbers go). It's prime. It's the lowest even number. It even works its way into the definitions of other classes of numbers (e.g. a prime number has two and only two numbers which it is evenly divisible by (1 and itself (right?)) The number two seems to have worked its way into our lexicon/psychology/subconscious in interesting ways (is it strange that I put lexicon in the same group of words as psychology and subconscious just then?) Think about all of the songs and movie titles and old saws which have the word two in them. "Two's company..." "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush." "Two heads are better than one." The number two seems to symbolize/signify the most basic plurality in existence. Why did philosophy stop at dialectics... where are all of the trialectics and quadralectics etc? Think about all of the things that come in pairs. A lot of the ways in which our bodies interact with the world comes in sets of two whether we think about it consciously or not. We have two eyes, two hands and two feet. I'm sure there are other important pairs to think about. Also, this seems related to the idea of symmetry. Two, it would seem is the most simply symmetrical number. Two just seems to me like a pretty important number all around. Thanks for such a stimulating question, Chris.

riffin'