Numbers.

There are two things on my mind right now. I'll go with the more banal, and save the other for tomorrow when it may turn out to be more relevant or ironic or post-ironic or what have you. (Note: I am not post-ironic, I am pre-ironic and in the process of inventing irony.)

I was looking up a number in the phone directory, and dialing the phone with one hand. I thought it was interesting that my thumb could navigate the buttons without my looking, as if their positions (though as arbitrary as the decimal system on which they are based) had been ingrained into my motor memory. That got me thinking about the way in which the dial was structured. Looking back on it, I saw that the numbers were positioned in the following way:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
  0

A typical calculator, on the other hand, uses this configuration:

9 8 7
6 5 4
3 2 1
  0

And it just so happens that on a calculator, I can do the exact same thing.

What does this mean? Three things:

The first is the capacity of the human mind. Note that this is not simple motor memory, as is the ability to walk or to grip a hammer or to hang-glide. This is the muscles moving in a non-predetermined pattern to the almost complete elimination of conscious thought. And, moreover, we can store two separate 'memory languages' for the same motor function. Three, even -- another comes into play as your same fingers use keys to type barbed repartees to this author's foolish statements. (And the same muscles are involved in playing the piano/church organ/celeste/harpsichord/Moog, although it could be argued this takes a little more conscious thought). If, say, I had a portable music player with buttons numbered sideways instead of up or down, I would bet it against a sack of dust that I would be able to learn their language, too.

I theorise that this would only work if the objects in question have different functions. So, for the purposes of dialing a phone, we would remember one set of numbers, and any differently-numbered phones would be simply inoperable. And therefore unmarketable. Which explains why nobody has made an effort to standardise the two systems.

The second point is the downside of this. To me, it has resonance with the Newspeak concepts of blackwhite and doublethink, both of which entail the thinker having two contradictory or mutually exclusive concepts in his or her head at once. In Orwell's book, these concepts had the purpose of enabling people to live normally under the contradictory totalitarian state. But now it is obvious that they are necessary to enable people to live normally in real life. Amidst all of the logical contradictions of religion and science, of law and morality, of observation and acquired knowledge, we live our lives with contradictions more basic and more grotesque, how we type our phones and dial our calculators and use our numbers.

A suggestion to future dictatorial states: Make any contradictory but necessary messages parts of motor-memory instinctual processes such as the ones I have given. I leave it to you to figure out the details. My advisory services for this purpose are available upon request.

The third point concerns why these two contradictory systems of organisation exist in the first place. Let's look at the number-cultures from which they have spawned:

On a calculator, one does mathematics. Counting begins (if not at negative infinity or further back) at zero, and continues up past nine into the infinite skies above. Thus, calculator numbers begin with zero -- the lowest of the whole numbers and the most basic of numbers of any kind -- and continue up. The 9, in this case, in the upper left-hand corner, is not a conclusion of the sequence, but a suggestion of more rows to come. Should it be followed by a 12 11 10? Of course not. But could it be? The question is left open: a little relabeling of buttons on a large enough calculator, a little rewiring, and we might come infinitesimally closer to the numerical infinity to which we aspire...

On a phone, on the other hand, these numbers are not numbers, and do not count. They are symbols. They could easily be replaced with letters, hieroglyphics, or names of serial killers. However, we choose numbers, not to count, but because they happen to count; and for the layman, counting begins with 1. One fish, one ham sandwich, one bag of hammers. Counting zero things is pointless.

So the phonemakers put 1 in the top corner, and went on from there, writing their numbers as 'alphabetically', downwards and to the right, as they wrote their phone directories. 0, of course, exists not to return to the beginning, but because the constructors needed a tenth digit. In a way, as it is placed at the bottom, it serves as a conclusion of a finite set, as opposed to the calculator's not-so-final 9.

Blessed are the phonemakers; for they pack their numbers away. As for the rest, I'll take the possibilities of calculator-numbers any day. If it takes some doublethink to make me coherently dial a phone, so be it.