On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 07:35:24 Jim Elwell wrote: ...?? 'Nightmaring' would be much more like it!... :-( Looks like one >>keeps forgetting that it would take a lot more than just 12 fingers to >>make us "comfortable" in the base-12! (Our brains! For some reason, they >>simply do NOT work well in any other base but *pure* decimal! God >>certainly knew what He was doing... ;-) ) > >Sorry, Marcus, but there is NOTHING magic about the number 10.
You don't understand, Jim. This is not about 'magic' existing in our current base 10 system we all use, but that our brains have been proven to be "made to use base 10"!!! That's the essence of the research I was talking about. You may not be a... "believer" in God, but such result certainly seems to indicate that God did plan for us to use base 10 after all!! This may indeed have something to do with the fact that we were endowed with 10 fingers, I honestly don't know. It does make sense though since in times yonder humankind was still crawling when it comes to science. As we evolved into a more modern society, sure, we could, as you correctly argued, ultimately "get used" or 'familiar' with another base, like 12, for instance. But, still, we would NOT function as efficiently in it! That's the whole point, Jim. Just as a metaphor, for you to sort of... "connect" to what I'm saying: What you describe would be akin to what we presently have with computers. They are indeed more efficient using base 2 (or powers thereof), but because they serve *us*, humans, they're been forced to operate "inefficiently", or not at its best, in the base 10! > If we had >grown up with 12 fingers, and had a numbering system based on 12 (e.g., >extracting from hexadecimal: 0, 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, 10, 11...), >it would appear every bit as "natural" as decimal does to us now. Of course, but ONLY (and ONLY) IF God had designed our *brain* to... "follow suit" to that framework! Please understand that I'm talking about something a lot deeper than just "familiarity"! Our brain circuitry is very much like a computer's *in concept*! I firmly believe that there IS an ultimate reason for our sticking to the base 10 (not 12, or 16, or 2 or any other, for that matter!). So, please, let's not upset what Our Creator meant for us to use and do! :-) >For those of us who have spent years working in binary, octal and >hexadecimal, this is pretty obvious. "10" is special through familiarity, >not due to anything else. > Unfortunately, not exactly, Jim. Otherwise we would not have had that research! As I said earlier, true, we can be skillful using any other base; but 10, for some reason (these researchers did not go that far in their work) is... "special" or THE one that gives us the ultimate... edge. Just like base 2-derived systems would for computers. Regards, my dear friend. Marcus ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
