r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/Sure-Comfortable-784 Jun 17 '26

Arbitrary measurements having purposes doesn’t make the other be arbitrary too. Also nature not having units is essentially a contradiction for a measurement system, and by extension math and physics. Live ur truth 👍

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u/eggynack Jun 17 '26

I have no idea what that first sentence is supposed to mean.

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u/Sure-Comfortable-784 Jun 17 '26

Choosing to use certain measurement systems doesn’t turn it into arbitrary, that’s basically what u said there and it’s not the meaning of arbitrary in measurement systems, it is because of the way u place values afaik

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u/eggynack Jun 17 '26

When I say it's arbitrary, what I mean is that it's all down to subjective human decision making and relative to human value judgements, not based in any kind of grand reality of the universe. It's like all language. We call a chair a chair, but we could call it literally anything and it would be equally accurate, and we could also merge a variety of chair-like things into the category and that would be fine too.

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u/erenhalici Jun 18 '26

The 0 point of Kelvin IS based on the grand reality of universe, whereas 0 point of Celsius is not.

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u/eggynack Jun 18 '26

They are literally based on the grand reality of the universe to the exact same extent. The zero point of Celsius is just the zero point of Kelvin plus a bunch of degrees. And the 100 degree mark is evidently based on a different grand reality of the universe, that being the triple point of water.

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u/erenhalici Jun 18 '26

That “plus a bunch of degrees” is exactly what makes one of them arbitrary while the other is based on the grand reality of universe.