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Remember fire is symbolic, archetypal, of transition. Usually destructive transition, complex (usually organic) structures are broken down in dead, homogenous, ash. On the other hand it can also represent a freeing process. Chemicals, carbon, rare elements, that have been locked in to matter are released in to the atmosphere. Also fire can be a source of energy. the heat of fire can sustain life, cook food. Something is destroyed so that something can be created. Food, pottery, metal work. All have traditionally used fire.
But to modern society what fire really symbolises is control. It is a natural phenomenon we have made our own yet despite all our accumulated knowledge still fascinates us and occasionally bites us on the bum.
P.s chiron: as a mathematician I would contest there is no distinction between reality and abstraction.
remember Peter's law of metaphysics: Any sufficiently sophisticated abstraction of reality is indistinguishable from reality it's self.
also mathematics is one of the most intellectual, logical, pursuits yet is mostly driven by inspiration and imagination and dare i say it intuition.
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