Thursday, December 30, 2010

Has it ever occured to you that the only reason we have a base-10 number system (that is, one that is counted in secondary increments of 10), is because humans have 10 fingers? An alien species with six fingers on each hand would likely have a base-12 number system.


Big round year numbers like 2000 don't mean anything and celebrating the fact that you happened to have been alive on thee dawn of a millennium is absurd . Our number system is completely anthropic and these dates don't mean anything. A different number system would produce a completely different date.

By the way, 2012 is also completely ridiculous and the only significance of the date is the fact that is marks the end of a human-made calender. Is it a coincidence that every generation of human-kind has had some form of forthcoming apocalypse or doomsday to mark the end of their time? NO! People are self-important narcissists. We all try to justify our existence as important. Our existence in this particular period of time is pure coincidence and will remain purely insignificant in the generations to come.

Gosh.

P.S. That was pretty nihilistic wasn't it?

1 comment:

  1. That's a good theory. I believe you for humans, but we also had the imperial system for ages, which was (mostly) base twelve. Still pretty cool to see that connection though.

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