• BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Numbers have a logical order. The alphabet is effectively random, but we take this random sequence so seriously we take it as a definition.

      • TheOneWithTheHair@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        “Effectively Random” how? Every culture using a shape to represent a letter sound for more than 2,000 years have structured their sequence.

        I. We have given letters a hierarchy since early times. Christ said he was the Alpha and Omega, meaning the beginning and end, as those were the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet. This structure was true then and now.

        II. If your argument is that we could have chosen to place the letters in some other sequence, well, we didn’t have alphabetical order until we placed the letters in to some sequence. If we “randomly chose” a different sequence, then that sequence would have been our alphabetical order. The Greek Z is Zeta, not Omega.

        We use the Phoenician Alphabet, so alphabetical order applies to that sequence, not the Greek Alphabet. They don’t end on Zeta.