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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.

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