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08818_Field_TCGG T583.txt
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1996-04-10
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789b
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How the Greeks encountered the confusion of tongues when
numbers invaded Euclidean space.
* Again let us ask why should the phonetic alphabet have
created the fiction of flat, straight and uniform space? The
phonetic alphabet, unlike the complex pictographics evolved by
priestly groups of scribes for temple administration, was a
streamlined code for commerce. It was easy for anybody to
learn and to use and it was adaptable to any language
whatever.
Number, that is to say, is itself an audile-tactile code
which is meaningless without a highly developed phonetic-
literate culture to complement it. Together, letters and number
constitute a powerful systole-diastole engine for translating
and retranslating the modes of human awareness in a system