Symbol-Metric Neutrality: Number Systems as Valuation-Agnostic Representations

Number representation systems are typically assumed to carry an Archimedean metric. We challenge this assumption. Drawing on Georges Ifrah anthropology of number systems and Ostrowski theorem (1916), we demonstrate that the same symbolic configurations are compatible with both Archimedean and non-Archimedean valuations. The metric is not carried by the symbol it is imposed by the reader.