Ever wondered why one(1) is the first number ? Wondered why B comes after A ? β before α ?
People answer that 1 is the first by showing me a finger (not the finger) and saying this is one. And two fingers is two ones so it's two. I get that. I know the difference. What I want to know is why 1 is the first number. Isn't it because someone assigned the word "one" to represent a single item. What if, that same someone had said or assigned two to mean one and vice versa. It all had to start somewhere right ?
It's the same case with alphabets and words too. Why do we call a table a table ? A chair a chair ? A watch a watch ? There are so many things that can be questioned in this world today. This I question have absolutely no sense and relevance.
Imagine if the alphabet went like this - W F Q S T X C D K L B A I R P L M E G Z J U N V Y O. And they decided that W G B L S were the vowels. Words would be spelled differently. Sound different. Even what I'm typing write now will not have any sense.
Also if the number system was named differently. If two was one and one was two. Thousand meant a hundred and vice versa. Everything we know would be different.
Is it possible that in some other dimension or planet, this actually exists. Why not ? Anything that is said would be weird sounding which gives us - an Alien language.
It's just interesting to question it and think about how different everything would be. At least to a few people. I guess. Or is it possible that I'm the only one.
Atu
you should look up Wittgenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein)
ReplyDelete..he wrote just two books, both of which are considered to be among the greatest philsophical works of the last century. he wrote mainly about the relationship between language and reality. I didnt understand even 5% of it though like most others. - Sharad