WEBVTT - From the Vault: Odds and Evens, Part 1 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:09.280 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.520 And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, so we 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:13.680 are heading into the vault for an older episode of 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.960 the show. This one originally published on September fifth, twenty 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.640 twenty four, and it's the first part in our series 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:29.760 on odds and evens. I hope you enjoy. 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:37.519 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:38.880 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.080 And I am Joe McCormick. And today we wanted to 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:46.800 begin a series of episodes about the psychology of numbers, 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:52.320 specifically the interesting and strange varieties of meaning and emotion 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:57.160 that we attach to the concept of number parody p 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.640 r it y number parody meaning whether a number is 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.520 odd or even. Now to start to kind of back 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:07.959 up one step and start with the broader question, I 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.120 do realize at first it might seem kind of counterintuitive 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:17.319 that anybody would have emotions about or read meaning into 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:23.680 numbers themselves, because a number is almost the textbook example 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.440 of a neutral, abstract object. You know, it is a 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.920 tool for describing reality that is supposed to have no 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.280 connotations of its own until it is applied to a 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.000 quantity of something. So, you know, when people are just 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:43.840 in conversation trying to speak about something that is neutral 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.640 and without connotations, a number is one of the most 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:48.200 common things people will bring up. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.920 Yeah, in fact, there's all you know, the idea of like, oh, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.600 I'm just a number to you. That would mean, yeah, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:55.920 I have no value to you outside of whatever my 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:57.200 numerical value is. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.600 Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the idea that you would be 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:05.240 stripped of all personality, connotation and significance in somebody else's mind. So, 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.440 depending on the context, it does seem totally normal that 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.160 you would have thoughts or feelings about the fact that 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.839 you have twenty three dollars cash in your pocket, or 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.120 the fact that you have six eggs left in the refrigerator. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:22.639 They might be kind of simple thoughts like this is 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.919 enough for now, or this is not enough for now, 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.280 or something like that. But the question is, why would 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:32.320 anybody have particular thoughts or feelings about the number twenty 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:37.359 three itself or the number six when quantifying nothing in particular. 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.040 And yet I do think there's some interesting evidence that 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:46.160 we sometimes read meaning into bare numbers and project feelings 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.040 and human characteristics onto them. And this goes beyond the 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.240 practical sense of using those numbers to quantify things that 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.239 are good or bad for us, you know, where we 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.560 would prefer to have more or less of something. And 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.840 one example that came to mind when I was thinking 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.720 about this is in art, music, storytelling, in the creative domains. 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:07.760 Now we're going to come back and do a deeper 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.800 discussion of visual art in a bit later in this episode, 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.080 but I wanted to start here by saying that I 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.760 think a lot of times when a number or quantity 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:24.440 is featured in an artwork, you cannot explain any rational 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.239 reason that the number is more appropriate than any other, 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.280 but it just is. It's just the correct number that 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.560 should be there, which means it feels like it means something. 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.080 One example that came to mind for me is on 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.280 the Beatles White album from nineteen sixty eight. There is 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.480 a track on there that's kind of famously pretentious in 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.640 some people's minds, mind blowing to others. It is the 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:53.200 avant garde sound collage track Revolution nine or Revolution Number nine, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.280 which is made out of a bunch of looping tape 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.000 segments that play over one another, and it creates this 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.280 weird sound collage of people reading bits of text, of music, 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.880 of old orchestras playing symphonic music, of the sounds of people, 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.320 you know, yelling or street noise, all different kinds of things. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.800 And the way that phrases and words are repeated in 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.240 this track has the most. It creates the most peculiar 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.560 incantatory feeling. It's both creepy and sort of thrilling, and 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.440 a major motif in this track is a looping voice 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.479 that just says over and over again, number nine, number nine. Now, 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.200 I went and looked up some stuff about this track 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.880 to see what the significance of the number nine was, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.560 because I never knew. And according to John Lennon, that 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:47.960 segment came from a test tape found at EMI Studios 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.279 that featured a sound engineer saying this is EMI test 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.120 series number nine. Now, of course people have come along, 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.360 including the artists themselves, and they would later attend all 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.680 kinds of meaning to that number, like I think this 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:05.760 is part of the track that some people thought was 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.320 like saying Paul is dead when you played it backwards, 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:12.400 so contributed to all kinds of conspiracy theories. But originally 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.839 it was about as close to a totally random number 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:17.839 as you could get. It was just a number found 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.120 on a tape that some engineer was saying. And yet 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.600 I think something about the vague cloud of emotion created 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.360 by that track would be very different if it were 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.960 a different EMI tape series number that had been used. 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.280 Like I tried to imagine the track, but with a 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.200 loop of someone saying number eight or number ten. I 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.640 can't be sure, but it seems like that would feel 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.279 quite different, even though I can't explain exactly how so, 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.000 Even when numbers are not quantities of things that matter 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.479 to our lives, but simply numbers read aloud on a 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.640 tape over and over, they can feel like they mean something, 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.440 and by consequence, the meaning would be changed if the 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:00.400 numbers were different. 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.280 Yeah, I mean, of course, it's important to note that 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.440 we're going to get into this obviously, that none of 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.520 these numbers have been hermetically sealed away from all other 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:15.920 culture an influence, so they have other associations that we 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.080 end up dragging into our reevaluation and reuse of them. 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.600 And but that being said, I think there you can 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.400 find something cool about every number. I think about this 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.640 a lot because when I'm swimming laps, I have to 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:32.760 do something to make sure that I don't forget which 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:37.039 lap I'm on, especially later on in my set, because 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.520 if I forget, I have to back up, and then 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.440 I can't keep doing that because then I'll just be 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.040 there all day. So you know, it's like, if I'm 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.480 on lap number four, well, a lot of times I 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.760 will Well, some of the times I'll think about things 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.080 particularly tied to four, like a fourth film and a 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.080 particular franchise or something. But other times I'll just I'll 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:55.880 sort of cast about, Okay, what is it about four? 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:57.839 I can think about, Okay, well, we got the you know, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.080 the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and so forth, the okay, five, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.799 what's coming up next? All right? Five Wounds of Christ? Okay, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:05.320 but what do we got next? Six? You know, and 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.680 so forth? And generally culturally speaking, you know, from from 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.040 a literary standpoint and so forth musical standpoint, there's going 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.480 to be something to latch on for all of them. 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.680 And it depends on what your sort of pyramid of 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:17.920 interest and influences are. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.360 I guess, yeah, yeah, though I would say I think 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.080 the number of semantic reference points you can use, either 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.080 from your life or from broader culture or literature or whatever. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.960 That those are going to be clustered lower on the 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.600 number scale. So like the lower the number is, the 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.640 more easily you will find lots of different significances of that. 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.880 Once you start getting into like the triple digits and stuff, 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:39.720 I bet then you start you do start to get 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.440 some numbers where you can't really think of anything for them. 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.880 Yeah, it's a long walk between four twenty and six 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.040 sixty six, that's for sure. I never swum that high, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:48.960 so I don't have to worry. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.000 Yeah, But anyway, So okay, the Beatles example I used. 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.040 That's in the context of art and music, where we 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.520 are primed to think about everything as imbued with meaning 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.560 or call feeling, you know, even if we wouldn't give 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.120 it a second thought in another context. So that's a 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.600 different kind of scenario. But I still think that even 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:13.640 in everyday life, we sometimes have mysterious tendencies to feel 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.800 and think about quantities that are not relevant to our 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.200 personal fortunes. And that's what I wanted to look at 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.320 for the rest of the series. Specifically, again with respect 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:30.320 to number parity meaning odds and evens. So separating numbers 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.160 into odds and evens is one of the first principles 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.480 we learn early in mathematical education, and fortunately it's a 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.600 pretty simple principle to learn and apply. I think I 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.200 remember the way I thought about it when I was 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.080 a little kid was just sort of an alternating counting principle. 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.640 You count starting at one, and every other number is even. 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.000 The more formal way to express it would be that 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.920 an even number can be expressed as two times in 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.480 wherein is any natural number any the positive whole integer, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.560 and an odd number can be expressed as two times 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.440 in plus one. And when I started thinking about this 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.040 topic for today's episode, it sort of occurred to me 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.520 that when we begin to think about a number for 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.439 any reason, any number, a number comes into your mind. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.280 I think, at least for me, one of the first 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.040 things I notice about any number that I think of 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.600 is whether it is odd or even. In other words, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:33.000 that parity is a high salience characteristic of individual numbers 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.560 in our brains. And later in my reading preparing for 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.160 this episode, I did find a reference to a scientific 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.560 study from the seventies that would seem to kind of 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.280 line up with that intuition that parity is a high 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.920 high salience characteristic of numbers. So there was a paper 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:53.240 called the Internal Representation of Numbers by Shepherd, Kilpatrick, and 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.600 Cunningham published in the journal Cognitive Psychology in nineteen seventy five, 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.120 and in this study, the authors found that if if 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:04.160 you give people random numbers, either as Arabic numerals like 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.680 we used today, or as groups of dots, or as 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:12.320 spoken words, and you ask people to arrange these numbers 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:17.160 by similarity group them together with other more similar numbers, Apparently, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.400 one of the major criteria that people seemed to used 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.760 to group them by similarity was the odd even distinction. 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.680 So that seems to be represented pretty high in people's 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.679 minds as a characteristic of numbers. And this suggests to 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:35.239 me that if we do have strange, sometimes irrational feelings 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:40.000 about numbers, oddness and evenness would likely play a role 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.679 in these feelings. So I was casually reading about this 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.720 looking for references to people having feelings about odd and 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.960 even numbers, and I came across some evidence that there 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.280 are indeed patterns in people's feelings about numbers, and one 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.360 of those patterns has to do with number paroity. So 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.160 shout out to where I came some of these references. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.120 It was in a couple of articles on this subject 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.080 from twenty fourteen by a British writer and science communicator 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.760 named Alex Bellows, who apparently writes on mathematics somewhat frequently 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.280 and had written a book concerning some of these topics 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.000 around this time. But anyway, these articles mention several different 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.880 experiments with findings about emotional preferences for odd and even 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:27.520 numbers and so. One example was an experiment by a 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.320 researcher named Mariska Milikowski of the University of Amsterdam who 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.080 showed subjects random numbers between one and one hundred and 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.360 then asked people to judge whether these numbers were good 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.719 or bad, or also excitable or calm, which is sort 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.560 of an absurd task because why would numbers be any 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.280 of those things? So, because of the absurdity of the task, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.000 you might imagine the results would be random, but instead 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.600 she found there was a pattern. On average, people are 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.679 more likely to say that even numbers are good and 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.840 odd numbers are bad, and also even numbers were judged 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.840 as more calm, so good and calm. 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.600 It's so ridiculous, and yet I do feel some of it. 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:13.400 As we'll get into. 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:18.680 Bellos mentions another research team, Dan King of National University 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.880 of Singapore and Chris Yanishevitz of the University of Florida, 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:29.120 who again gave people random numbers randomly arranged between one 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.320 and one hundred and asked if they liked, disliked, or 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:37.040 felt neutral about all these numbers. And it turns out 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.839 that people tend to like even numbers and numbers ending 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.920 in five better than they like the other odd numbers 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.599 that don't end in five. So people show more emotional 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.640 positivity toward numbers that are divisible by two or five. 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.400 Seems like kind of a strange pattern again, but as 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.520 we go on in the series, we might find some 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.400 interesting reasons for that kind of pattern why people would 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.199 have preferences of this sort. One more thing, there's a 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:11.440 kind of practical business implication. Bellows says that consumer research 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.240 appears to show, at least in some cases, that people 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.920 have preferences for products with an even number in their 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.400 name as opposed to the same product with an odd number. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.600 I think the article mentions a hypothetical cleaning product that 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.760 was in one of these experiments. But you can just imagine, 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.640 you know, V eight juice versus V seven juice. I 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.400 don't know if I'm drinking a V seven. Some seems 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.360 wrong there, I will admit. 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.760 V seven sounds more like it's supposed to go in 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.640 your engine, I guess, and VA could conceivably go in 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:42.199 your body. 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.400 Wait, isn't a vight a type of engine? 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.520 I guess. I guess part of what's going on here 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.040 is that V eight is coded to both engine and 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:55.079 tomato drink. V seven does not have a drink connotation, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.080 but he's close enough to the thing that is also 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.920 you know, something do with cars. So so yeah, it's 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:04.720 I feel like there's a lot of this that goes 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.880 on with any of these, Like there's there's the reference 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.600 you're aware of, and then there's like another sort of 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:16.000 like phantom reference in your pyramid of interest and influences 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.040 that is changing the way you think about a number. Yeah. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.360 Yeah, But anyway, this made me so curious, like if 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.560 these patterns are actually valid in the real world, if 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.480 people do, in many cases show a kind of greater 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:35.440 liking or emotional preference for even numbers, especially in certain contexts, 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.600 or maybe even numbers and numbers, numbers that are otherwise 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:43.400 easily divisible by a common factor like five. What causes that? 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.360 And how do similar patterns manifest throughout human life and 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.440 in our cultures and in our art. Oh and just 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.720 to throw this in, because it was a funny thing 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.200 that belos mentions in one of these articles I was 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.600 talking about, he brings up the fact that Douglas Adams 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.480 has talked about the number forty two seems like a 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:05.960 mostly unremarkable number, though it does play a role in 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.680 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy because spoiler alert, it 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.280 is discovered to be the uh oh, what is the 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.640 exact phrasing? It is the answer to the question like 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.120 what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.280 I apologize if I get that's like, that's correct, okay, yeah, 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.720 and so so the answer is forty two. But Douglas Adams, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.760 speaking of the number forty two, apparently said that it 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.200 was quote the sort of number that you could without 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:34.400 any fear, introduced to your parents. That you know, that 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:39.760 seems kind of right, something feels absolutely correct, communicates rectitude. Why, 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.560 I don't know. I don't think it's a cultural association 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.640 with the number. It feels deeper, it feels like something 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:50.120 mathematical about the number. Forty two kind of seems like upstanding. 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.120 Yeah it should be. There's like a proof for it. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:54.840 it's it's weird to think about it. Like you were 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.840 talking about revolution number nine earlier, and it's like, to me, 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.680 on some level, nine feels right. Nine feels nine is 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.880 kind of a bad boy. You know, it belongs in 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.080 a rock song, so somehow, you know. Now, I do 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:10.600 want as we get into all this, I do want 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.720 to just throw this out there that even when we're 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.080 talking about evens and odds, we do have to be 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:20.080 aware of the the temptation of the realm of numerology, uh, 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.480 the you know, the belief in a magical, mystical, infernal 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.480 or divine relationship between numbers and reality. It's really easy 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:32.480 to get into with with with numbers in general, if 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.520 only even if you're only doing it like surface level, 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.560 you know, just sort of like accidentally believing in various 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.800 superstitions about numbers. And then and then when push comes 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.440 to shove saying well, okay, I'll go with twelve instead 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.040 of thirteen. Thank you, very much. But then you'll find 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:52.040 some some very strong examples of numerology concerning say, oh, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.080 I ran across one that said, okay, look to even 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.880 numbers in the Bible, because that's that's how God is 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:02.880 speaking to you. God speaks through even numbers. Why you know, 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:04.880 I wasn't gonna I didn't. I didn't go too deep 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.280 on it because I had a feeling the answer was 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:08.280 not going to be fulfilling. 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:10.679 What's wrong with the odd numbers in the Bible. 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.800 Well, one thing that through that I instantly thought of 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:15.959 is like some other bit of I guess, sort of 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.600 you know, vaguely Christian numerology. I mean, maybe this is 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.359 rooted in like more traditional Christian numerology, or maybe it 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.680 was more like you know, recent like nineteen nineties fundamentalism. 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.840 I'm not sure, but I remember reading at some point 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.119 in my past that, oh, well seven is the holy 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.280 number because it's odd and it can't be divided, but 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:40.159 six six is bad because it can be divided, And I, like, 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.400 I distinctly remember that, and for a while, I when 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:44.840 I was younger, I was like, yeah, yeah, that that 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.840 that adds up, right, But no, it doesn't it. What 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.399 is what sense does that possibly make? And yet on 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.719 some level I still hope by it that, Like, yet, yeah, 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:57.040 seven feels like a wholly righteous number, and six six 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.440 falls a little bit short. Six is going into the inferno. 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.320 Well, it's funny you mentioned seven, because this also came 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.399 up in some of the articles I was reading for today. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:06.679 I don't remember the exact source, so I'm sorry, but 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.399 one of them got into the idea that if you 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.400 ask people to pick a random number between one and ten, 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.680 the most common number people will pick is seven. And 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.280 there's actually a logic there because it's the number between 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.560 one and ten that actually feels the most random, like 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.119 all the even numbers between one and ten. That doesn't 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.920 seem right because there's something about even numbers that doesn't 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:34.640 feel very random to us. The even numbers feel too predictable, 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.680 So you need to pick one of the odd numbers. 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.119 So you shouldn't pick one because that's the beginning of 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.840 the scale. You shouldn't pick nine because that's divisible by three. 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.280 You shouldn't pick three because three times three is nine. 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.640 You shouldn't pick five because five times two is ten. 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.280 But seven, that's nothing. You can't do anything with that 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.800 In there. No, there's no multiple, there's no way to 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.480 divide seven into a whole number. It's prime, and there's 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.560 no way to multiply it and still get a number 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.920 within the scale of ten. So it's like the one 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:03.160 that stands out in there. 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.280 Yeah, I think that's kind of the rationale behind some 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.480 of the ideas that the seven is holy, that it's 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:10.800 like it is, it is like God, and that it 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.560 is it cannot be divided, it's and it can't be 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.040 doubled and still hit something within the one to ten 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:21.720 range and so forth. I don't know, but you know, again, 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:23.919 this is also, at the end of the day, pretty silly. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.480 The late m Berto Echo rightfully pointed out. He goes 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.439 into this in an extended bit in Fuco's Pendulum, but 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.640 he rightfully pointed out that humans have manipulated numbers since 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:38.359 ancient times to create illusions of meaning, and that one 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.200 can ultimately do whatever one wants with numbers. You can 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.040 torture the numbers and get what you want. You can 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.680 do all sorts of weird analysis of like, oh, well 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.840 this this person has, you know, so many letters in 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.399 their first name, so many in their last name. You know, 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.359 divide by the root of such and such, and we 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:57.199 have the number of the beast, and so you can 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.600 do that kind of thing all day and it doesn't 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.280 mean anything other than you can make the numbers do 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.840 what you want. And on top of that, number based 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.639 superstition's number based heuristics. These can be very sticky, you know, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.920 even if you don't really believe in them. Absolutely, they're 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.160 in there in the background of your mind when you're 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.200 dealing with numbers that otherwise don't mean anything, and your 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.919 mind again always wants to make the best sense of 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.679 the data it's presented with, even if it has to 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:27.879 depend on things that are not real. So that's a 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:32.440 warning against going too far. But that's not what we're 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.440 for the most part talking about in this. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.840 Series, right Well, I personally take no position on whether 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.639 odd or even numbers are holy or unholy or whatever. 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.359 But I am interested in if we have patterns of 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.359 feelings about them or ascribe meaning to them, and if so, 0:20:47.800 --> 0:21:01.200 why do we have the psychological tendency to do that. Now. 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.280 One of the things that first got me interested in 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.960 this subject of preferences for odd and even numbers or 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.639 odd and even quantities of things was an idea that 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.040 actually comes from the world of art, of art theory, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.840 art criticism, and the idea is that there is a 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:25.800 widely held natural preference that people have for the staging 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.480 of odd numbers of items within visual art, or the 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:36.880 division of visual art into odd numbers, into odd patterns, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.760 basically odd quantified patterns, and that this applies to painting 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.760 and photography and film and so forth. And I found 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.080 that so curious, and that does ring very true to me. 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:51.640 But I don't quite know where that preference would come 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.080 from or why that is. And if so, is that 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.360 I don't know, does that go to something deep within 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:58.520 our brains or is it just sort of a is 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.120 sort of a cultural preference. It's a convention that we've established. 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.760 What's going on with this idea about odds and visual art? 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.119 Well, the short answer is absolutely yes, definitely no, and 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.840 it depends on who you ask. But it is really 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.240 fascinating to get into. So one of the big ones. 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:18.399 There are several different things that are kind of like 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:23.080 different concepts and laws and rules that are involved here, 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:24.600 but the big one, the one that I imagine a 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:26.520 lot of you are thinking of, is, of course, the 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.920 rule of thirds. This is a pretty widespread and famous 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:34.440 composition rule. It's pretty standard in photography, cinematography, various forms 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.840 of visual art, and it's a standard overlay in various 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:42.680 visual editing software, titles, and even in phones and cameras. 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:45.560