If I have a cell with 5 "beans" (hypothetical counting organelle) in it. And the cell will die if it does not have at least one bean. These beans stack on top of each other like Legos, and "float" inside the cell so that the top bean is at the surface of the cell, exposed to the weather. Every winter the exposed bean dies, so that each year there is one less bean - and the next highest bean is now "floating" at the top. After 5 years there will be no beans left and the cell will die.
Now try to do that by counting up. How does it work?
Ooh, I thought your post was a response to the binary-counting one but it's a sibling to yours—my comment was referencing that. In a binary-based arithmetic system of fixed number of bits, counting up from 000 to 111 is isomorphic with counting from 111 down to 000 if you flip all the bits.
