This may be a bit like jumping to the end of the novel. Probably it will read better if we work up to it instead of blurting it here.

And maybe I’ll wisely wind up and down to it, in another place. But here, today, allow me impatience. Permit me impulse. Let me be curt.

The truth is, language isn’t finished. Neither is math. Both are ways to proceed, shortcuts often and tricks at times, for conveying ideas and for speeding calculations.

We can make other sounds than modern languages use. We can form other symbols for numbers and operations.

The infinite power is in you, to invent new sounds, new ways to organize, and new pathways, neural or stellar.

Don’t talk to me about God’s word. God doesn’t need words. Words are for us, among us. Go ahead: make new words and make new sounds. Then get your friends to use them.

As for numbers, it’s pretty easy to see that addition is fast-counting and multiplication is fast-adding. And adding exponents is a quicker way of multiplying. You can invent your own maths, for solving or at least organizing the challenges you meet. Some philosophers opine that math is the only pure invention of the human mind. I don’t understand what that means. And it’s probably incorrect anyway. We are receiving intimations that some numbers may be powerful, perfect, and tenacious enough to exist even if we don’t.

Like 496.

Oh, and Doug Adams’s answer? 42? That really does beg the question. Don’t ask what’s 6 times 7. Instead, consider this:

What’s 6
times 6
plus 6?