gareth: How does Jim Carrey do as a very unfunny character?

Marcus: Humans are pattern-matching and significance-seeking machines. The number 23 is statistically no more or less prevalent than, say, 7 or 19.

Marcus: And as the Wikipedia article on The 23 Engima says, "many cultural references to the number 23 are deliberate, made by artists who are aware of the mythical status of the number".

Marcus: I also love this example in the article:

Marcus: "The film The Number 23 received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with the review tallying website rottentomatoes.com reporting that 119 out of the 129 reviews they tallied were negative for a score of 8% and a certification of 'rotten'. 1+1+9=11 1+2+9=12 11+12=23"

justin: Yeah, that explains half of it. But I clearly recall being obsessed with the number from an early age - from reading 'choose your own adventure' activity books for kids. The number 23 kept coming up, and I was 7 or 8 years old. The nthroughout my life I had fun pointing it out to people, and people began to notice. In fact, in one of the biggest coincidences in my life, I was explaining the phenomenon to people when a TV show section came on and started talking about the 23 Enigma - and that's how I found out that it wasn't just me. The significance of 23 is when you notice it, or it comes up by way of coincidence - like right now in my new job my phone socket is 23. A couple of weeks back I bought two bottles of wine in a bar at 23:23 and the bill came to 23:23 - when I pointed that out the guy behidn the bar revealed he was into it as well. It's just one of those things you either 'get' or not.

justin: Oh, and Jim Carey was terrible. At one point I had to look away from the screen in embarassment. I hate to say it, but it's just that I keep expecting him to goof-off.

Marcus: Well, if you fixate on a number, of course you're going to keep noticing it. But, for instance, as I look at this orange juice carton I see the numbers 250, 100, 500, 199, 120, 90, 2000, 70, 20 and 6. (No sign of 23 I'm afraid.)

Marcus: Let's focus on the number 250. Only yesterday I checked out the IMDB Top 250 movies. And taking another of those numbers: half 500 is 250! And I just glanced at the clock and the time is exactly 10:00. 1000 divided by 4 equals... 250. Then I read an article the other day where Sandisk are cutting 250 workers. In the year 250 a plague epidemic spread across the Roman empire into Egypt. Exactly one month ago today 250 militants were killed in Iraq. The list is endless.

tim: I have to comment on this, I was telling martin (my cyborg enhanced futuristic war machine mate) about this a few years ago and he thought it was bollocks, so I challenged him to open an A to Z of bristol randomly and what was the first page? 23. All we need now isto somehow link it with the knights templar...

justin: It's not just number fixation. It's a particular number a large amount of people get fixated with. There is no '17 enigma' for example.

Marcus: That's because people follow other people. eg 13 is an "unlucky" number, 7 is a "lucky" number. These are also forms of number fixation.

justin: You're just acting out your fixation with needing to act like an authority figure by attempting to explain away a phenomenon you have dismissed as insignificant. But numbers are very important and they permeate all life - especially prime numbers, the golden section, the Fibonacci sequence etc. Here. Most people who obsess about the number 23 treat it as a harmless curiosity in life - but then, if you actually bothered to look you'd see the ratio 1·61803 is everywhere - except most people don't have facinating stories of how they became transfixed with that number and how it keeps cropping up - Most peple learn it and use it. Many people treat number 13 as a given but 23 has a unique status and that's what makes it important.

Marcus: I find it bizarre that somebody who would so readily denounce religion is also so set on dogmatically pillorying me because I fail to recognise the "significance" of an obsessive number. Once again - as I have illustrated with 250 - all numbers, from a certain point of view, are significant. It's just if you choose to fixate on the number or not.

Marcus: Synchronicity is a foible of the mind - we are pattern-matching, significance-seeking machines, even where there is neither pattern nor significance. It makes the universe kind of scary to comprehend when there is no meaning. From this we get both religion and your own desire to see significance in a number and get angry with people that don't acknowledge it (religious fervour).

justin: Last word. don't mistakenly thing you have conclusively illustrated anything. Just because people fixate on a number doesn't mean it isn't significant.

justin: Case in point, the golden ratio - what do you have to say about that?

Marcus: Reader Toon pwns j00.

justin: How does he own me? he completely agrees with me, but doesn't go far enough -"But numbers are very important and they permeate all life - especially prime numbers, the golden section, the Fibonacci sequence etc." - Justin