Numbers as Expressions

While a number is clear cut and exact in what it states, the fact of it stating means it as no ability to have a stable meaning in isolation. A number states something else and as such, only emerges from some process behind it which causes the number to exist. The number itself thus has no meaning except as a summary of a larger object which it emerges from. Meanings of the number 13:

1. A system is generated which continues logically and operates on a specific set of rules. This system is an infinite multiplicity consisting of points, which can be used through various operations to reach other points on the line. Such is the nature of the real numbers and corresponding arithmetic. Another set of rules, based on this is created, which states a certain set of conditions that mark out a selection of points on the line. Such is the nature of a prime number. 13 exists by nature of this rule system, wherein the rules for a prime number cause 13 to be found as one such prime.
2.  An amount of a multiplicity (water, identical objects) is entered into a situation wherein it is measured. The multiplicity is divided into units of an equal size which are then calculated by creating a number-line system as before. 13 thus comes into being by the quality of this multiplicity which reaches 13.
3.  An object (equation or geometric figure) is drawn, where the constituent components have arbitrary sizes whose shape is codependant with all other shapes in the object, such as “x+y=w”, or the lines of a triangle, where all components (variables) are sizes by their relations to each other. A number-system is created outside of this object and then applied onto the components of the object through measurement, which then allows for one to convert relative size to “absolute” size, sizes which are points on the number-system of the tool used to measure. 13 exists because w was found to equal 18 and x was found to equal 5.