Seven chocolate muffins in a line on the table before us: one for Bluefish, one for myself, and five that were a figment of my imagination.
In asking myself how the snake of muffins moves and propagates as the train passes, it was then that I gained an insight into what numbers really mean, and how scientific theories live and die.
I wondered whether the five make-believe muffins were part of the 'seven-ness' of the group, or whether I should dismiss them as arbitrary artifacts of an over-active mind and hungry stomach.
Should a man impose any order at all on a group of (some tangible and some not) muffins?
If I had two tangible chocolate muffins and five imaginary bananas, is the 'seven-ness' of the group of muffins broken forever?
And what of the five muffins that exist in my head? They do not provide sustenance, and I am not permitted to feed them to Bluefish, but does that mean they can never be legitimate objects of investigation?
It depends on your view of what constitutes a number, and where they come from. I have been terribly lazy in not thinking about such matters for most of the duration of my life.
If the equations (terribly complicated ones) say that the collision of two imaginary chocolate muffins on a train results in the emission of a single tangible muffin with Bluefish's name on it, then this is a legitimate matter for scientific investigation.
If the experiment fails, then we conclude that our exotic branch of number-manipulation must either be cast aside forever, or taken away for significant surgery to be performed upon it.
If the experiment is a valid one, and Bluefish can generate real treats for herself by manipulating my thiought processes; and I realise this with the force of my imagination, then truly can we say that the human brain has dominion over nature.
