Busting Rocks · Accounting for Experience Without Using Numbers

[hej]

Busting Rocks · Accounting for Experience Without Using Numbers

I have made a bifurcated method of character progression. Also, I have created a method of accounting for experience devoid of numbers.

I have posted them at Busting Rocks and I welcome further commentary.

--hej
Busting Rocks
This game reflects archeological and linguistic evidence about the Stone Age at a particular time and location. Truth is elusive. Knowledge is sparse. Magic is, as now, about deception. Characters can not write. Nor can they count. Religion does not exist. Neither does morality. Conscience does, though, and can assist or impede characters' acting in their best interests.

 

[Nagol]

You are using numbers and just representing them with groups of symbols. Counting is still required so numbers are in use, just in a more cumbersome way.

 

[hej]

Praytell, if | is a symbol, what does it symbolize? If you say, the item being counted, then really it symbolizes anything -- which renders it meaningless. All meaning has to come from its context.

If your boss asked you, as an accountant, to draw up a balance sheet and you gave him dots and lines, you'd be fired.

Likewise, if he asked you to do something more simple, such as "count the items in the warehouse and tell me how many" and you gave him a tally. He would look at it, and for every ||||| he would be increasingly displeased. When that /number/ of | reached, oh, about thirty, don't you think he would look at you as if you were crazy? How about when it reached 100? 1000? More?

Come on!

Tallies are not numbers, and you know this in real life, but when it comes to something academic, you pretend that a tally is a number.A tally is not a number.

A tally requires accounting. No counting is necessary to construct a tally. Simply account for each object in question with a mark.

Moreover, a tally only has a numeric representation -- and the corresponding word -- in a language that has numbers.

 

[Nagol]

If | = ...... (which is similar to one of your constructions) then a player has to count the number of accumulated "." to determine when to convert it to a |. "Six" is a word (which is a type of symbol) representing a number. 'VI' is a symbol representing the same number. '......' is a group of symbols that represent the same number. The symbol doesn't matter. 6 == VI == ......

I wrote the symbol doesn't matter, but that isn't true. The choice of symbol can make something easier to grasp or harder. I submit '......' is harder for the modern reader to grasp than '6', but is exactly the same concept: a number.

 

[Nagol]

Praytell, if | is a symbol, what does it symbolize? If you say, the item being counted, then really it symbolizes anything -- which renders it meaningless. All meaning has to come from its context.

If your boss asked you, as an accountant, to draw up a balance sheet and you gave him dots and lines, you'd be fired.

Likewise, if he asked you to do something more simple, such as "count the items in the warehouse and tell me how many" and you gave him a tally. He would look at it, and for every ||||| he would be increasingly displeased. When that /number/ of | reached, oh, about thirty, don't you think he would look at you as if you were crazy? How about when it reached 100? 1000? More?

Come on!

Tallies are not numbers, and you know this in real life, but when it comes to something academic, you pretend that a tally is a number.A tally is not a number.

Moreover, a tally only has a numeric representation -- and the corresponding word -- in a language that has numbers.

I give accountants 'dots and lines' ALL THE TIME. It's called 'binary'. This post is also composed of 'dots and lines'.

 

[hej]

Sure. So what?

Once you have the ability to count you use it.

 

[hej]

"I give accountants 'dots and lines' ALL THE TIME. It's called 'binary'. This post is also composed of 'dots and lines'."

Your statement is demonstrably not true. Computers works with electrons, and you know or should know this.

In addition, the machine does the delivery -- and the interpretation of the binary code, which is 0s and 1s, i.e. numbers (not a tally). So, your point is very odd.

By the way, I appreciate your tenacity.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Praytell, if | is a symbol, what does it symbolize? If you say, the item being counted, then really it symbolizes anything -- which renders it meaningless. All meaning has to come from its context.

If your boss asked you, as an accountant, to draw up a balance sheet and you gave him dots and lines, you'd be fired.

Likewise, if he asked you to do something more simple, such as "count the items in the warehouse and tell me how many" and you gave him a tally. He would look at it, and for every ||||| he would be increasingly displeased. When that /number/ of | reached, oh, about thirty, don't you think he would look at you as if you were crazy? How about when it reached 100? 1000? More?

Come on!

Tallies are not numbers, and you know this in real life, but when it comes to something academic, you pretend that a tally is a number.A tally is not a number.

A tally requires accounting. No counting is necessary to construct a tally. Simply account for each object in question with a mark.

Moreover, a tally only has a numeric representation -- and the corresponding word -- in a language that has numbers.

Actually, tallies are counts. Like, definitionally. You have to count to make an accurate tally. What a tally isn't is a number, which a specific symbol that represents a specific tally or count. .

So, what you have is counting. What you don't have is formalized mathematics.

 

[hej]

"Actually, tallies are counts. Like, definitionally."

No. If you look at the standard usage (and a dictionary's definition) of count, the word is inextricably intertwined with numbers

Note, you can also account for items to take a tally, making a notch in a stick for each item, e.g. That's not not counting. That's accounting. But I catch your drift and do not want to split hairs further.

Good to see that someone explicitly understands that tallies are not numbers.

 

[Blue]

Arabic numbers, like all numbers, are just shorthand - just marks we use to symbolize. "1" is really just "The successor to zero in the set of integers".

Same for "|". || is the successor of |, ||| the successor of ||, and so on. Both of these accurately represents the concept that numbers represent. Especially when you are counting up to a certain number of tally marks.

It's like a subset of roman numerals where all you have is "I". You can still represent any positive integer you chose, it just takes longer.