Both visual and musical compositions are appreciated for the beauty of a set of complex relations embodied in them. And as in pure mathematics, so also in the abstract arts, these interesting relationships are discovered, or created, within structures composed of utterances denoting no tangible object. Among the abstract arts music stands out…In profundity and scope it may compare with pure mathematics. Moreover, both of these testify to the same paradox: namely that man can hold important discourse about nothing.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, p. 193
So, it turns out Seinfeld had a philosophical justification after all; but, more importantly, so does math and music. When I want to mess with the teenagers I know, I’ll ask them to tell me what a number is. Do numbers really exist? Can you really show me one? It’s a question that has humbled me in my mathematical studies, and it should humble us all. Mathematics (as well as instrumental music) seeks to incarnate intangible reality; so does Christianity.
