The number one is what every child learns to add to itself to define the number two.

Before the child learns to add one to itself to get the number two, the child can’t get to number three, or to number four, or to any other number.

When the child learns to add one to itself to get the number two, he isn’t thinking critically the way we are thinking now. Instead, the child is just moving his body, and reciting the names of the whole numbers. This is true whether the child is learning to count in Russian, or in Spanish, or in any other language.

Later, the child learns to write out the numerals 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 etc. But this may not happen until several years after the child has learned to count.

From this we see that in the beginning, mathematics is learned through body movement. And when we think about body movement, we observe how the moving hand moves gracefully with a continuous movement, so that if I take up a pen in my right hand, and let my hand produce lines with a continuous movement, I will produce continuous, flowing line drawings with my pen hand. But how do mathematicians define this continuity?

In just a few sentences, we have moved through many thousands of years of the history of mathematics. But if you haven’t studied mathematics in depth, you might not get the point. A vast amount of careful thinking has been produced, to move mathematics all the way from its beginnings in infancy all the way up to the mature modern theories. And continuity theory is a modern topic in mathematics.

You don’t have to be a mathematician to appreciate that the moving hand is coordinated by an intelligent brain. Some hands are better coordinated than other hands, but the brain which coordinates hand movements is a highly evolved brain. But this hand evolved its intelligence a long time before wordy philosophers began to compose treatises which defined what intelligence is. And what the IQ tests measure is not the fine motor intelligence which guides human hands.

As far as the number one is concerned, this first whole number is used by each child to count the other whole numbers. And in terms of these whole numbers all of the fractions, ie the rational numbers, are defined. And by using rational numbers the decimal numbers and the irrational numbers are defined. And again, this paragraph collapses thousands of years of the history of mathematics into a few words. And mathematicians haven’t yet made a careful study of the non-rational, non-verbal brain.

This non-rational, non-verbal brain has been evolving for hundreds of millions of years. It is present in all mammals. Humans have evolved to be specialized in their use of their hands. And some humans think through their hands, more than as they talk or as they just sit motionless as suggested by the statue by Rodin, “The Thinker”.

As the child counts by adding the number one to itself to get the number two, the child is moving his body. Later the child concentrates upon just moving one hand to count tangible objects such as pennies or marbles. And even if a child just looks at different objects and counts by moving his eyes, he is still moving his body in order to count. The objects the child counts exist in different positions in space, and to move from one object to another object, one moves through the continuum of space as time passes.

The basic movement is through the continuum. But what is the continuum?

Defining what the continuum is has been the work of mathematicians for centuries. In modern mathematics there are theories of continuity, and continuous functions, and set theory, and other theories which are required to understand using rational language, what is correct to imagine between any two points of spare and any two points of time.

What is experienced between two points in space-time needs to be integrated with what rational philosophers have come to understand in theory. Why? Because the reasoning mind and the feeling mind belong to the same brainy creature we call human. Until this mind-body integration is performed, there will be a lot of confusion and error in human feeling and in human thinking. Thinking and feeling will remain mysterious and often at loggerheads.

So when you look at a child learning to count, don’t dismiss this as “simple” mathematics. It might be that the old prophet’s idea, “A little child shall lead” refers to this very habit in mature thinkers to overlook and dismiss as unworthy of study what is so basic that no one considers it worth paying serious attention to. Then, by taking more notice of things some new theory of “The Lord” (that is to say the source of old prophecies) will be originated which explains the sensation of unity (the number one) felt by all of mystics from time to time. This new theory would make it possible for most any diligent high school graduate to learn how to become even better mentally integrated than the saints, prophets, and other spiritual leaders of the past ever could be.

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