Semiophysics, discusses mathematical mechanisms and their representations in

Semiophysics, discusses mathematical mechanisms and their representations in mind and the real world, analogizing mathematical objects and the intuitions they generate to mechanical tools. Similar ideas are found among the four liberal arts of the ancients: Number, Geometry, Music and Cosmology. The epistemologies of all four require, then and now, the intuitive use of mathematical objects, conscious or unconscious. Examples can be found in conceptual issues of Geometry and Number with implications for relationships between man’s physical and psychological worlds. One set of articulations were attributed to the shapes of Platonic solids found among the Neolithic stone circles in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 2000 years before Plato. Each symbolized particular physical and psychological themes. All manifested equal edges and every face of each solid was the same perfect polygon. The solid with four equilateral triangles manifesting four vertices and faces, the tetrahedron, represented the physical element, Fire, and the personal psychological climate of a choleric, fiery nature. A Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangular faces, two tetrahedrons annealed, the octahedron, signified Air in physical composition and optimistic hopefulness in psychological disposition. Six square faces together making a cube, evoked the elemental physical component, Earth, and its human expression as a phlegmatic, apathetic personal style. Twenty faces, all equilateral triangles, constitute an icosahedron indicating Water and a dominant feeling state of melancholic sadness. Like onomatopoeic words and pictorial script, the three dimensional geometry of these Platonic solids feel like what they came to symbolize. The personality styles symbolized and evoked by the Platonic solids continue to be used to this day. For example, they compose the basic elements of the constitutional categories of remedy in homeopathic medicine as introduced over 200 years ago by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann in his classical Organon of the Medical Art. The assignment of clinical remedy in homeopathic treatment combines consideration of the presenting physical symptoms and signs, the what, with intuitive discernment of the patient’s constitutional type, the who. To the homeopathic physician, tetrahedral fire is suggested by the traits of personal magnetism, courage and inspiration as well as egotism, strong desire and rage. 113 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013613