Devender Harne, who has 25 working fingers and toes (photos), is the next step in human evolution leading toward the manifestation of the Handlebrot set.

According to the mother of the 10-year-old from Nagpur, India: "I feel that he should make more progress in life that people with twenty fingers are not able to achieve."

Indeed, while the Babylonians recognized the inevitable rise of humans with six digits per limb with their sexagesimal numeral system, they could not have foreseen the beneficial mathematical complications of an extra toe. Devender may be the harbinger of a revolution in fuzzy numeral systems with variable bases.

The perception of extra digits is a common experience of people in altered states of consciousness. This link between the subconscious and dactyl evolution was explored in the documentary Altered States, in which William Hurt used psychotropic drugs and a sensory deprivation tank to force himself to transcend common pentadactylism.

As the Handlebrot archetype spreads through the collective subconsciousness, we should expect to see more instances of lateral polydactylism spurred by gathering morphogenic fields, eventually culminating in true fractal dactyl progress.