Numerology

As human beings there are a lot of things that we have managed to define and catalogue when it comes to the Universe, its structure and its workings.  For all we have managed to discern however, there is a great deal we do not know.  Despite the desire to approach the process of discovery with logic and reason, through method and rationale, there is an inevitability in all of us to hold a degree of superstition.  We become wary of certain things, even when we know and understand that such wariness is illogical and has no basis in truth.  Still of all, superstition persists.

One such area that I find fascination is the study of Numerology.  Up there with Astrology and many other supernatural inclinations, Numerology is one of those things which has no basis in any Scientific study.  Although perhaps Numerology is the closest supernatural curiosity to actual Scientific study as it is more structured and less subjective than the other divinations.  Still Numerology is something which is never linked to causality, only ever linked to correlation and coincidence, but as they say, correlation does not imply causation.

Nevertheless, I find the use of Numerology and the study of this art as something of interest.  Two of my favourite branches of Psychology are Behavioural Psychology and Cognitive Psychology.  The former deals with how our behaviour is rationalized and the latter deals with our thought processes.  The two are closely linked and one can often lead to the other and vice versa.  What I find fascinating about Numerology is ultimately the question of whether beliefs, desires, intentions, and expectations affect outcomes to the extent where false positives appear and cognitive bias occurs, or to put it simply, bad things happen because we expect them to and may be unconsciously causing them to happen, or whether there is any real correlation or causation at play.

I have said before, when it comes to the lottery, you are just as likely to win with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, as you are with any other 6 numbers chosen at random.  For some reason numbers pose something of an anomaly in our minds when it comes to processing probability and reason.  Despite the above statement being statistically true, we still want to insist such a series is less likely to occur than any other 6 random numbers.

The more attentive among you and more superstitious among you will have already been slightly triggered by the previous paragraph owing to the three sixes mentioned within it.  This is yet another factor in this field of study - the religious and cultural significance of the numbers we fixate upon.  This causes bias when humans are asked to give random numbers, with a particular persistence and importance given to the number 7.

There are others that we commonly associate with bad luck, like the number 13 or the number 23.  Both of these are seen to be bad - the former however is deemed to be good luck within my family which adds yet another element to consider here - the way we are raised and any Psychological conditioning that you can ascertain based upon it.

Other numbers people choose to fixate upon tend to be related to mathematical concepts.  In the world of technology for instance most counting and arithmetic inevitably involves binary, the only number system that computers understand at a native level.  This gives rise to patterns that are centred around the number 2 and its powers, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024 are perhaps the most prevalent.

Whilst all of these deal with the concept in itself, the curiosity and the case for observation and study comes when these numbers are incorporated into peoples' lives.  Taking 13 as an example, there are between 1 and 3 occurrences of the date Friday the 13th per year, depending on the day of the week that the year started on, and whether or not it is a leap year.  The rarity of such an event gives it more visibility when it occurs.  The day in itself is widely believed to be one of bad luck.  2020 will have two occurrences, one in March and one in November.

Someone, somewhere will experience bad luck on those days, by simple virtue of the fact that every day, someone, somewhere has bad luck, and those days are no different.  As I said before though, what I find interesting is the question of whether people will fixate on the fact that bad luck coincides with the date, or whether somehow they unconsciously cause it to happen because they expect something to go wrong on that date, Numerology attempts to rationalise this speculation with explanations offered where correlations occur, the more people experience bad luck on Friday the 13th the more Numerology would assert that the date is likely to be the cause.

I am yet to find any real use for Numerology however beyond the mere entertainment and the satisfaction of curiosity both of which are fed by seeing the correlation of data, if you're interested in an example of this a good place to start would be the Lincoln Kennedy correlations of which there are quite a few and countless articles exist breaking those down but I'd recommend the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Blog post from 2007 that focuses on these connections.