metonymy4u

The distinction between one and many appears to be a fundamental paradigm of human reason. One could tell a story in which such a distinction forms the basis for all mathematical, and therefore all abstract, reasoning. But what was it really like, for that first hominid, who discovered the patterns we now call “one” and “two?” Was this really the jumping off point? Thence, that all reason sprang, like Athena from Zeus’s brow? Or is it possible that line, curve and texture were also among the primal discoveries? Could reason be a product of form just as much as function? The functionalists certainly would like to believe otherwise. But could this be nothing more than a favorite community tale, true only by virtue of having been repeated so many times that we can’t think of anything else? I wonder, what use do we have any more, in our technological world, for forms? And how much flexibility is left, once the last remaining prime is factored away?