ELi5: Why are humans rather obsessed with having most of things set to an even number? It’s almost an internal crime to set the volume on the TV to 19 instead of 20, or set the brightness to 59 instead of 60.

Question

(Didn’t know if the flair is suppose to be mathematics or biology)

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

As others have pointed out, it’s not actually a human thing, or rather not a generally human thing, but a specifically YOU human thing. You have a predisposition for even numbers so you notice when people tend to do that. I would say most people have the same predisposition because even numbers are a part of human beings. 2 eyes, 10 fingers, etc. but as others have mentioned it is not a universal thing and some people have a tendency the other way or even other particular counting habits.