In which I attempt to answer the question "What even is a number?" for a friend. https://notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2019-02-18-08:58.html …
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Replying to @DRMacIver
Nice! The original is this by
@ESYudkowsky I think. I too have written a variant (not yet posted).https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3HpE8tMXz4m4w6Rz/the-simple-truth …1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @Meaningness @ESYudkowsky
Yeah,
@mcallisterjp also just suggested this. I don't think it is the original, but could easily be wrong (it's definitely not where I got it from, as I haven't encountered this piece before, but there could just be intervening steps that I just didn't see).1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Oh! I’d be very interested to know the original if anyone can find it, then! Would like my version to point there.
@ESYudkowsky, do you know?2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
I have a vague impression that my first encounter with this was as a story about something people actually did (albeit not because numbers hadn't been invented yet), possibly in a James Herriot book. This might be a false memory though, and Google is being uncooperative.
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There’s an interesting thing people do to count sheep in Yorkshire, which is yan tan tethra. Also used in knitting! But
@_awbery_ grew up with it, which seemed magical and exotic to me because I learned about it in a YA fantasy book. By Pratchett I think. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera …1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Meaningness
sounds like we're having similar thought patterns today
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Yup! The In Popular Culture section is interesting. Turns up in SEVERAL of my favorite YA novels actually!
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