I wrote a conclusion to my thread before I read the most correct replies. I will try to respond to them in the next couple of days but until then I will explain why I started the thread.

So I’ve presented a challenge to all you science types about numerology. Myself I don’t practice numerology. But that doesn’t mean patterns in all things don’t exist. I mean I can see where giving a name to a baby would influence their future. There was a case were a father named his son Sue so he would grow up to be tough because his father wouldn’t be there to look after him.

Seriously though, I don’t think we can see all patterns. But why does this matter? I think if you have one pattern you can apply it to a place where we can’t see a pattern. In a previous thread I mentioned Sesquation could be used to solve for x in polynomials. In this case of polynomials I hypothesized that if you had test values of the graph the pattern that is known (Sesquation) would reveal a pattern. I don’t have all the details but I think there is something there.

Cryptography has roots in numerology. Simple cyphers have letter frequencies. But I don’t try to predict the future with numerology. I am only concerned with the processing of the pattern. I wish I could share the numerology work an unknown reader sent me. It wasn’t to predict the future but related numbers of patterns found by a sieving algorithm. It looked sophisticated and I didn’t have anyway to debunk it.

But also true numerology is dangerous. That is the misuse of. But I don’t completely rule out significant patterns. Take paintings for example. Heads are drawn in a triangle representing the trinity. So any designed creative work could possibly be explained by similar methods as numerology.

I have exhausted this thread but a hope it give a thought provoking take on patterns. Because in public key cryptography you don’t have to find the pattern of the trap door function, you just have to find 2 or more unknowns based on a makeshift pattern you augmented the graph with.

But that is speculation. But you have to start with speculation to start new investigations.

5 hours ago, Trurl said:

I wrote a conclusion to my thread before I read the most correct replies. I will try to respond to them in the next couple of days but until then I will explain why I started the thread.

So I’ve presented a challenge to all you science types about numerology. Myself I don’t practice numerology. But that doesn’t mean patterns in all things don’t exist. I mean I can see where giving a name to a baby would influence their future. There was a case were a father named his son Sue so he would grow up to be tough because his father wouldn’t be there to look after him.

Seriously though, I don’t think we can see all patterns. But why does this matter? I think if you have one pattern you can apply it to a place where we can’t see a pattern. In a previous thread I mentioned Sesquation could be used to solve for x in polynomials. In this case of polynomials I hypothesized that if you had test values of the graph the pattern that is known (Sesquation) would reveal a pattern. I don’t have all the details but I think there is something there.

Cryptography has roots in numerology. Simple cyphers have letter frequencies. But I don’t try to predict the future with numerology. I am only concerned with the processing of the pattern. I wish I could share the numerology work an unknown reader sent me. It wasn’t to predict the future but related numbers of patterns found by a sieving algorithm. It looked sophisticated and I didn’t have anyway to debunk it.

But also true numerology is dangerous. That is the misuse of. But I don’t completely rule out significant patterns. Take paintings for example. Heads are drawn in a triangle representing the trinity. So any designed creative work could possibly be explained by similar methods as numerology.

I have exhausted this thread but a hope it give a thought provoking take on patterns. Because in public key cryptography you don’t have to find the pattern of the trap door function, you just have to find 2 or more unknowns based on a makeshift pattern you augmented the graph with.

But that is speculation. But you have to start with speculation to start new investigations.

That is not correct. Investigations frequently start from observations, particularly from unexpected observations.

You proceed from a false premise.

Numerology is not pattens - that’s not an accurate summary of the practice. So the observation that patterns exist has no relevance. Science observes patterns and discovers a physical reason for them, but numerology does basically the opposite.

A Boy Named Sue is a song by Shel Silverstein and made famous by Johnny Cash. It’s fiction. Numerology is less thought-out (AFAICT) than the sociology of how you might be treated because of your name, and how you might react to it. People with the same name don’t necessarily turn out the same.

I think you need to state clearly what you mean by a pattern, and also why numerology is a search for patterns.

(Working off memory of something I read years ago; so treat this as anecdotal ...)

Somebody noticed that professional athletes in some sport had a higher than chance probability of having certain astrological signs.

Non-science nonsense would say "well, when mercury is in retrograde ...".

But it (the "pattern") was studied and it was realised it did have to do with when they were born. As children starting yearly age-grade sports, those born sooner than the others had a statistically significant advantage in physical development (size, strength, dexterity, ...), that carried through their young sporting years. It helped keep them in the sport and develop.

(Again, all statistics; bell curves apply.)

@Trurl is this what you might mean by your "numerology"?

35 minutes ago, pzkpfw said:

Somebody noticed that professional athletes in some sport had a higher than chance probability of having certain astrological signs.

Canadian study of pro hockey players. Showing a fairly straightforward causal relationship between birth season and early encouragement from sports teachers and coaches. There could be other seasonal effects, as well, both in terms of homeroom age differences and also early infant development as it relates to day lengths, ambient temps, airborne pollens, etc. These effects are amenable to statistical analysis, unlike mystical conjectures like those of numerology or astrology.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Canadian study of pro hockey players. Showing a fairly straightforward causal relationship between birth season and early encouragement from sports teachers and coaches.

For some reason, I got booted into a UK secondary school while I was still 10, the youngest by more than a month of a yearly intake of 360 pupils.

The school had a good sports record, and being the youngest and among the smallest, I found the first year tough.

But year two, I still qualified for the under-12s among whom I was one of the biggest, and had had an extra year of training against stronger opponents.

This advantage was nothing to do with me being a Libra as such; it was simply down to the school year beginning in September.

One of the more obvious arguments against numerology is there are multiple systems, Chaldean and Pythagorean, which assign the values to letters in a different way. It’s very Industrial Disease (Two men say they’re Jesus; one of them must be wrong)

If names were destiny, you’d expect certain numerological trends in e.g. the math standouts in school. And people would be touting this success to sell everyone on their idea.

9 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

But year two, I still qualified for the under-12s among whom I was one of the biggest, and had had an extra year of training against stronger opponents.

This advantage was nothing to do with me being a Libra as such; it was simply down to the school year beginning in September.

Also, most Libras are Virgos, due to equinox precession. And Virgo being a large constellation, over fifty degrees of arc along the plane of the ecliptic. Sorry, puny Libras.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

One of the more obvious arguments against numerology is there are multiple systems, Chaldean and Pythagorean, which assign the values to letters in a different way. It’s very Industrial Disease (Two men say they’re Jesus; one of them must be wrong)

Jesus = 11

Yeshua = 25

One of them must be wrong. "The other one's out on hunger strike, he's dying by degrees. How come Jesus gets industrial disease?"

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Jesus = 11

In Pythagorean. Using Chaldean, it’s 9

19 hours ago, TheVat said:

Canadian study of pro hockey players. Showing a fairly straightforward causal relationship between birth season and early encouragement from sports teachers and coaches. There could be other seasonal effects, as well, both in terms of homeroom age differences and also early infant development as it relates to day lengths, ambient temps, airborne pollens, etc. These effects are amenable to statistical analysis, unlike mystical conjectures like those of numerology or astrology.

I don't mind quotes being trimmed for clarity, but showing just that bit of my post then going on to add detail (confirming the rest of my post) might have the unfortunate effect of making it seem like I do think there's anything to astrology. I'm sure that's not what you meant to do but to be clear to any lurker skim-reading: I do not.

Edited May 21May 21 by pzkpfw

1 hour ago, pzkpfw said:

I don't mind quotes being trimmed for clarity, but showing just that bit of my post then going on to add detail (confirming the rest of my post) might have the unfortunate effect of making it seem like I do think there's anything to astrology. I'm sure that's not what you meant to do but to be clear to any lurker skim-reading: I do not.

Reasonable precaution. Yes I was just adding information and expanding on things a bit. BTW, it would be interesting to see if there seasonal correlations which were reversed six months, calendar-wise, in NZ.

6 hours ago, swansont said:

In Pythagorean. Using Chaldean, it’s 9

Chaldeans are troublemakers. When you get a 9, they just act coy and pretend that's not real....

BIVS

Chaldean Numerology Explained: Meaning, Chart & Name...

Discover what is Chaldean numerology, how the Chaldean numerology chart works, and how to calculate your name number. Learn its secrets for success and destiny.

Chaldean numerology works differently from numerology methods. Chaldean numerology uses numbers from 1 to 8. The number 9 is special. It is kept separate. Chaldean numerology focuses more on the energy of the numbers than on calculations.

Somewhere back there, an early Chaldean numerologist got one of his fingers chopped off.

I just remembered another kind of actual numerology (dunno what it's called but did a quick google with some of the above and didn't see it):

My ex father in law used to have the approach to life of believe everything anybody says or writes. Why would they lie or make stuff up? He once spent time trying to tell me all about something he'd learned.

The idea was to add up all the digits in a number, iterating until there's just one digit left. That would be applied to a first number based on other numerology on something like your name, such as those above. This would give you a single digit, that had some kind of bogus meaning (a "5" means you like Jazz music and hate vegetables).

He was extremely "amazed" that, e.g.

367 = (3 + 6) + 7 = 9 + 7 = 16 = 7

367 = 3 + (6 + 7) = 3 + 13 = 3 + 4 = 7

... both come to 7. OMG! (This was taken as proof there was some meaning to it.)

Edited May 21May 21 by pzkpfw

Well from what you guys are telling me I don’t think the pattern part of numerology is not what you disagree with. It is the application of the pattern. The pattern is being contrasted with nonsense. This is the dangerous part of numerology.

Question:

What if we had a time traveler who went in the past knowing all future events. And numerology was like baseball stats where you use numerology to see how badly changing events would change the future. If such time travel was possible we could prove if numerology worked.

I’m not saying that this is possible, but it reflects why people want to know the future or want to change past events. (They are missing chances for present events.)

I believe events have meaning but the meaning is tangible not a number (usually). But I also believe unconventional patterns do exist in creative works. Like a renaissance painting. If someone invents a cipher it works like numerology. Like hackers exploiting bugs in software. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. It isn’t just science it is an art form. I don’t think science can explain the World itself. We need people who do numerology. Even if it is just to laugh at them😉

But to me ciphers are a form of numerology. Again ciphers are assigning values and again a man made creative work. And ciphers are scientific. But maybe numerology can help. The are algorithms in numerology that cycle through the numbers with a sieve.

These systems are so vast that we will never completely understand them. That makes them fun. But I think this understanding contrasts with numerology. We are trying to figure these things out but we a limited. Our understanding contrasts to the numerologist trying to predict the future so he can ignore the present.

9 hours ago, Trurl said:

Well from what you guys are telling me I don’t think the pattern part of numerology is not what you disagree with

I think there’s disagreement that there’s a “pattern part” of numerology. Numerology doesn’t assign numbers based on some observed pattern or objective metric. So don’t jump past this as if it’s been accepted as given.

What if we had a time traveler who went in the past knowing all future events. And numerology was like baseball stats where you use numerology to see how badly changing events would change the future. If such time travel was possible we could prove if numerology worked.

I’m not saying that this is possible, but it reflects why people want to know the future or want to change past events. (They are missing chances for present events.)

If you start with the physically impossible, just about any conclusion is possible, but the motivation has no bearing on the validity of the practice.

But to me ciphers are a form of numerology.

It objectively is not. You don’t get to just make up your own definitions for words

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Numerology doesn’t assign numbers based on some observed pattern or objective metric.

Yup, and even when a pattern is somehow (often retroactively) claimed as showing itself, sometimes an observed pattern or connection is nothing more than apophenia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

5 hours ago, TheVat said:

Yup, and even when a pattern is somehow (often retroactively) claimed as showing itself, sometimes an observed pattern or connection is nothing more than apophenia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Apophenia must be the twin sister of Pareidolia.

4 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Apophenia must be the twin sister of Pareidolia.

Hehe, yes, or the mum. The kids are Karen, Bob, and Pareidolia. Pareidolia was the best at Hide n Seek - you would spot her face almost anywhere but it usually wasn't actually she.

On 5/22/2026 at 11:34 AM, TheVat said:

Yup, and even when a pattern is somehow (often retroactively) claimed as showing itself, sometimes an observed pattern or connection is nothing more than apophenia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

And citing them as support is likely confirmation bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

On 5/23/2026 at 11:44 AM, swansont said:

apophenia

Apotheosis? Really?

The wipedia example is an idiom. A formation in rock why wouldn’t it be a pattern. It may not be alien life but it stands out to have a regular, Demetria shape instead of a plane irregular shape.

It is not my invention that patterns and computation is everywhere. That is computational mathematics.

I am not trying to make you believe in numerology. I am only to see if it can be applied to traditional science, particularly cryptography. There are patterns in numerology. You guys as a traditional mat guys just don’t subscribe to the result. And truthfully I am not sold on numerology. It can be misused. I relate Ai and computational algorithms to numerology because we are plugging in stuff and we don’t fully understand how it works.

What is the difference of deriving meaning from a position of a star or asking Ai to design your battle plan?

There is no possible mechanism where the position of a star could have any effect on something here on Earth (beyond, say, the effects of a gamma ray burst; or coincidence as per the sporting story above.) It's easy to dismiss. Studies that show correlation have been found to be flawed.

Whereas, an AI being asked to design a battle plan is drawing on ingested information. It will be essentially looking for patterns (armies that did this tended to come out on top, armies who did that tended to fail). Statistics. And it can still be wrong.

Patterns can be used in cryptography. A simple replacement cipher can often be cracked simply by looking for how often each symbol is used. E.g. the most common symbol, if the language is English, is often "e". Any modern crypto method will do things, like add "salt", to avoid creating patterns.

2 hours ago, Trurl said:

There are patterns in numerology.

You keep saying this.

I asked you a while ago what you mean by a pattern.

When are you going to tell me ?

I am looking for a means that I can use when I am presented with something I decide whether or not it is a pattern.

2 hours ago, Trurl said:

Apotheosis? Really?

No, not really. TheVat (not me; you messed up the attribution) said apophenia.

2 hours ago, Trurl said:

The wipedia example is an idiom. A formation in rock why wouldn’t it be a pattern. It may not be alien life but it stands out to have a regular, Demetria shape instead of a plane irregular shape.

Faces don’t have a pattern?

I think one big problem here is that you’re imagining definitions for words that aren’t the actual definitions. Makes it hard to communicate properly

2 hours ago, Trurl said:

There are patterns in numerology.

There are patterns in sewing, too. Having a keyword show up in two descriptions doesn’t mean there’s any kind of equivalence.

On 5/19/2026 at 11:05 PM, Trurl said:

But that doesn’t mean patterns in all things don’t exist.

Sometimes the patterns we notice are directly caused by a relationship; that is science.
Sometimes the patterns we notice are indirectly caused by relationships; correlations can be science.
Sometimes we notice patterns where there is no relationship whatsoever; that is nowhere near science, it is numerology, otherwise known as WAGs.

Do I need to repeat this again ?

27 minutes ago, MigL said:

Sometimes we notice patterns where there is no relationship whatsoever; that is nowhere near science, it is numerology, otherwise known as WAGs.

I agree. But if you don’t believe in spiritual aspects of numerology the pattern seems like it is based on the imaginary. But even if numerology is not believed in the is still a mathematical relationship. Didn’t it take awhile for imaginary numbers to be accepted? Or drawing in many dimensions? There are hundreds of algorithms for numerology.

Could these algorithms relate to cryptography? Could you decode with an algorithm that knows no limits of missing information? I say to break a trap door function you have to apply a known pattern to it. A one way function that appears to be irreversible may give clues when you augment it with a known series. I don’t know numerology all that well but I bet if you used the tools it has cryptographic uses. Like how in basic ciphers letter frequency is used. The plain text has already been encoded with it symbolic equivalent.

47 minutes ago, MigL said:

Sometimes we notice patterns where there is no relationship whatsoever; that is nowhere near science, it is numerology, otherwise known as WAGs.

Do I need to repeat this again ?

I got you. We are now on the same page. When you said WAGs I thought WAGs were some undefined category.

There is an over abundance of wags. All the more reason to apply numerology techniques.

Would you agree with the statement: solving public key cryptography is numerology I the sense by reading the message is like working numerology in the sense that there is no logic to it. Ignoring the fact we have a public key.

Three times in the past I have tried to solve problems with 2 or more unknowns. That is what trap door functions are: a public key with 2 unknowns to get the private key.

This is not numerology, but it is pushing boundaries. What if I took a graph of the public key function and took a pattern I modified from numerology? And graphed f at numerology over the graph of public key? We look at the resulting graph and look for patterns that are known in numerology. So now for 2 unknowns we have an algorithm.

Of course you could use a more accepted pattern. We are just using numerology for fun and it has a bunch of tools to analyze the graph.

I know you will be skeptical of this method. The plotting idea is mine. The use of numerology isn’t. Someone once emailed me numerology applied to my work. I thought to myself there is no correlation. I’m not so sure.