Thanks for expanding the discussion. Yes I know the other numbers have their say too ;) Although Maiden/mother/crone and Youth/father/sage simplfy nicely into Man/Woman...and grandfather/father/grandchild sounds tidy but isn't really since the string of "greats" in front of grand could go on ad infinitum.
But your points are well taken - however I think I should clarify just in case I was coming across too deterministic - I don't think we MUST choose in terms of duality, only that we have a tendency to boil concepts down into dualities - many of which are some of the most fundamental and powerful concepts that drive us as a species.
I think its no coincidence that we seem to like base-10 numbering so much when we have 10 fingers and 10 toes - especially the fingers - our primal primary tools are base 10 by default (barring accident or deformity) so I don't think its much of a stretch for us to tend to look for dualities.
I think the either/or simplification you mention might be a good example of that sort of thing at work. Not that one choice is left and one choice is right brained - but that these types of fundamental divisions in conceptualizaition being dual due to the architecture of that which is doing the thinking.
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But your points are well taken - however I think I should clarify just in case I was coming across too deterministic - I don't think we MUST choose in terms of duality, only that we have a tendency to boil concepts down into dualities - many of which are some of the most fundamental and powerful concepts that drive us as a species.
I think its no coincidence that we seem to like base-10 numbering so much when we have 10 fingers and 10 toes - especially the fingers - our primal primary tools are base 10 by default (barring accident or deformity) so I don't think its much of a stretch for us to tend to look for dualities.
I think the either/or simplification you mention might be a good example of that sort of thing at work. Not that one choice is left and one choice is right brained - but that these types of fundamental divisions in conceptualizaition being dual due to the architecture of that which is doing the thinking.