Yes, all granted, but I think the point is that without fingers tool use is hard, without tool use flying to other planets is hard, and we selected base 10 as t

Yes, all granted, but I think the point is that without fingers tool use is hard, without tool use flying to other planets is hard, and we selected base 10 as the default despite its disadvantages, primarily because of our biology (unless there's some other advantage to base 10 I'm missing?). To assume aliens wouldn't have fingers or do the same thing seems like the odd assumption. Whales are nowhere even close to creating technical civilization, that's really left field. Dolphins at least occasionally do use tools, I think, but without fingers they have to use their nose for everything and it really limits them.