Fair warning: I've been trying to compose this post for wayyyy too long so I probably missed my original target. If it doesn't make a lot of sense, you can blame me being punch-drunk tired, forgetting to eat lunch and dinner, and/or my migraine.


I was re-reading this thread and marvin_pa made me think of perception when he mentioned the meaning of the number 42.

We think of the number four when we see the symbol 4 and the number two when we see the symbol 2 but who is to say that our perception, our REALITY, is right? We use a base 10 number system in the US so we understand the concept of four and two but what about using a different base system? Specifically, I'm thinking of the ancient Mayans, who used either a base 20 or a base 5 system. (The answer depends on how you see the numbers... Since it works similar to tally marks, changing every 5 numbers, I'm going with Mayans using base 5.) So what we know as a four isn't as big (or small, in base 20) as a four to the ancient Mayans. Whose perception is right, ours or theres? Both are real, though, which I can attest to since I was made to do trigonometry using Mayan numbers back in college. (Side note: Math and I never got along but I never truly hated math until I had to use Mayan numbers to do it.)

Along similar lines, I've often wondered about the perception behind letters and words. History shows that the first recorded alphabet (as opposed to pictograms) was that of the Phoenicians, Mediterranean seafarers who most notably traded with the Minoans on the Greek island of Crete. I wonder what made the Phoenicians think of changing the status quo of writing from pictograms to letters. Can you even imagine how much different the world would be if the concept of the alphabet hadn't been developed? (... And now my mind is running off with the possibility of the world being a more peaceful/less war-torn place had the alphabet never been developed and every written language used pictograms. Oh wishful thinking.)

In the really weird way my mind works, I can see the Phoenician alphabet as a sort of Big Bang event. I look at a single letter on my computer screen... A single letter within a word within a sentence within a paragraph within a post within a webpage... That tiny insignificant letter has more than 3000 years of history behind it. Although 3000 years isn't even a fraction of a fraction of a microsecond in the history of the universe, my mind can equate that single letter and it's history of writing with the life of a single person in the time since the Big Bang.

What makes to someone, their reality, really is in the eye of the beholder.