OK. Time to take another crack at the question of people’s relationship with math and numbers.

I keep coming back to his subject because it puzzles me. I find it hard to understand why so many people have this strong mental aversion to things involving math, even very basic math. So I suppose I am looking for answers.

The root of my puzzlement is that the sort of math I am talking about is very simple math. We’re not talking about strange mathematics involving bizarre sounding things like “n-space” and “asymptotic variables”. We’re not even talking about algebra, the bete noire of many.

We are talking about extremely simple math : add, multiply, subtract, divide. If you graduated from elementary school, you know how to do these thing. And you don’t even need to do these things yourself. That’s what calculators (or, more likely, calculator apps) are for. You only have to understand them.

So it is clear that it’s not that people can’t do or understand the math. They are perfectly capable of it. And yet they avoid math like it’s the worst mental torture known to mankind.

Ergo, it must be something deeper. Something about the nature of one’s experience with math, perhaps.

One possibility is that it’s entirely random. If your first experience with math is easy and fun, you form a good opinion of it, and said opinion leads you to be open to more math, and hence you become good at it and comfortable with it.

If the first experience is bad, the opposite happens. The mind closes down on the subject because math is now treated as a threat imposed upon one from above, and the scenario is set for a person to learn only the absolute minimum required in order to get through school and then to cleanse the mind of all math once school is done.

This phenomenon is greatly enhanced by the nearly universal belief that some people are just naturally good at math, like they have the “math gene”, and for everyone else, it’s nothing but mystery and misery.

I don’t believe it, and I think belief in this “math gene” is very destructive. It gives people an out that seems like a relief at the time (guess I am just not one of those math people) but which, in my opinion, leads to people being unnecessarily subnumerate and hence open to manipulation, not to mention unable to exert the control over their lives that a comfort level with math brings, especially when it comes to finance.

Money is numbers. And numbers are power.

I don’t think it’s a gene and I don’t think it is random chance either. I think it goes yet deeper than that, into the deeper layers of human psychology. I think people become afraid of numbers and math because they understand that numbers are binding, and do not want to be bound by them.

The amount of money you have is a number. As such, it cannot be changed to fit better with your emotional needs. That’s why people think numbers are “cold”. They are not alive. They are finite. They are limited. And some people, right-brained people, simply cannot accept that kind of truth.

So they rebel against it. They do everything they can to minimize contact with the cold, finite, divided, “uncaring” world of numbers. They prefer to operate from an expansive worldview that is not tied down by numbers. They try, in a sense, to pretend numbers do not exist or do not represent truth in any meaningful way.

But the numbers of a situation do represent truth. Hard, unyielding, unwavering truth. And if the numbers don’t add up, nothing works. No amount of soul-searching, contemplation, examination from different perspectives, or prayer is going to change that.

If something costs $1200, that’s it. You either have that much money or not. If a bridge can only hold 1000 pounds, then there is no amount of negotiation that can convince it to hold more. If your child’s temperature is 104, then it’s time to take them to the doctor no matter how inconvenient it might be.

Numbers can represent truth that absolutely cannot be denied. No wonder so many people don’t like them.

Some people even give in to the feeling that the numbers somehow change when they are not looking, and it can certainly seem like that sometimes when you are dealing with numbers on a large scale.

But you know they didn’t. The idea is absurd on the face of it. What, did magical number gremlins change the numbers while you blinked? Of course the numbers haven’t changed. How could they? And armed with this irrefutable fact, you can go back to what you are doing and figure out where you went wrong.

Perhaps the difference is one of the qualitative versus the quantitative. Or pragmatism versus idealism. The idealist wants to remain in the world of untarnished ideals. The pragmatist accepts the limitations and imperfections of the world because they wish to get things done.

Being a pragmatist myself, as well as someone who is quite comfortable working with numbers, I might be biased. But to me, people’s refusal to do even the most basic kind of mathematical reasoning strikes me as childish and absurd.

And that’s what it boils down to. Once you strip away the things that a calculator can do and the belief that math is a “you got it or you don’t” proposition, all you have left is mathematical reasoning. People are unable or unwilling to think in numbers.

And these are not stupid people, necessarily. That’s why I think it has something to do with psychology or temperament. Some people inherently reject the cold hard inflexible truth of numbers, and will tell themselves whatever it takes to discredit mathematical truth so they don’t have to face their own refusal to accept reality.

“Oh, surely such a complicated thing as this can’t be reduced to mere numbers!”

Why the hell not?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.