this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Sure, water is a really good system and it works well.
And for F that range is -40 to 104. See how you get 64 extra degrees of precision and nearly all of them are double digit numbers? No downside.
Furthermore F can use its base 10 system to describe useful ranges of temperature such as the 20s, 60s, etc. So you have 144 degrees instead of just 80, and you also have the option to utilize a more broad 16 degree scale that’s also built in.
You might say that Celsius technically also has an 8 degree scale(10s, 30s), but I would argue that the range of 10 degrees Celsius is too broad to be useful in the same way. In order to scale such that 0C is water freezing and 100C boiling, it was necessary for the units to become larger and thus the 10C shorthand is much less descriptive than the 10F shorthand, at least for most human purposes.
As you might imagine I completely disagree.
For my purposes 20's, 30's, negative 10's and so on is perfectly good, and I would describe my purposes as human.
Again, this is based on your, and my, learned reference points. Of course you feel the scale of the farenheit is better suited for describing your life, those are your learned reference points.
I have my own learned reference points based on the Celsius scale I grew up with and, suprise suprise, to me they're superior.
So your position is that whatever we are taught as children, we naturally consider superior. I strive to be more of a free thinker.
It's patently obvious that having 16 versus 8 gradations to describe an appropriate temperature range is superior. But you can't even accept that minor concession.
Yet you fail miserably. Arguing your deeply learned arbitrary system is better than other peoples deeply learned arbitrary system.
I can't, 1 degree C is all the accuracy I've ever needed, for anything honestly.
My position is both systems are arbitrary, both systems have ranges appropriate for humans, both systems have all the accuracy most people would ever need. I haven't seen any actual objective arguments to the contrary. Lots of qualia arguments mind you, but none objective.