"Well, yes," says Meritxell, "but if the reason we're learning it this way at all instead of just coming up with 'one jellychip a piece', which three-year-ols could do, is the permutations approach then we should be solving the sum instead of just noticing it has to get us the three-year-old answer. It does, though, since eleven in twelve of them are 'zero' and the twelfth is 'twelve'. ...I'm not sure that even gods are doing the full math all the time but maybe it's usually nearly that symmetrical."

"Well, yes," says Meritxell, "but if the reason we're learning it this way at all instead of just coming up with 'one jellychip a piece', which three-year-olds could do, is the permutations approach then we should be solving the sum instead of just noticing it has to get us the three-year-old answer. It does, though, since eleven in twelve of them are 'zero' and the twelfth is 'twelve'. ...I'm not sure that even gods are doing the full math all the time but maybe it's usually nearly that symmetrical."