EXCERPT: [...] Scientists have long claimed that our ability with numbers is indeed biologically evolved – that we can count because counting was a useful thing for our brains to be able to do. The hunter-gatherer who could tell which herd or flock of prey was the biggest, or which tree held the most fruit, had a survival advantage over the one who couldn’t. What’s more, other animals show a rudimentary capacity to distinguish differing small quantities of things: two bananas from three, say. Surely it stands to reason, then, that numeracy is adaptive.
But is it really? Being able to tell two things from three is useful, but being able to distinguish 152 from 153 must have been rather less urgent for our ancestors. More than about 100 sheep was too many for one shepherd to manage anyway in the ancient world, never mind millions or billions. The cognitive scientist Rafael Núñez of the University of California at San Diego doesn’t buy the conventional wisdom that ‘number’ is a deep, evolved capacity....
EXCERPT: [...] Scientists have long claimed that our ability with numbers is indeed biologically evolved
I would say that.
Quote:But is it really? Being able to tell two things from three is useful, but being able to distinguish 152 from 153 must have been rather less urgent for our ancestors.
We generate numbers like 152 or 153 using logical processes. In this case addition, for any natural number n, n + 1. Once we have that addition process in mind, and it's precisely what we are doing when we count, then all we need is some system for inventing new names for numbers. If we do it repeatedly (recursively) eventually we will arrive at one hundred and fifty three. Doing that can generate any natural number that we need. Inventing a corresponding subtraction operation allows us to generate the integers. If we invent a division operation and start dividing them, we get the rational numbers.
So I don't think that the point is whether we can form an intuitive concept for every number. I doubt if we are much better at doing that than other animals. Where we excel, and where I think that we do have an innate ability, is in conceiving and employing logical operations.
EXCERPT: [...] Scientists have long claimed that our ability with numbers is indeed biologically evolved – that we can count because counting was a useful thing for our brains to be able to do. The hunter-gatherer who could tell which herd or flock of prey was the biggest, or which tree held the most fruit, had a survival advantage over the one who couldn’t. What’s more, other animals show a rudimentary capacity to distinguish differing small quantities of things: two bananas from three, say. Surely it stands to reason, then, that numeracy is adaptive.
But is it really? Being able to tell two things from three is useful, but being able to distinguish 152 from 153 must have been rather less urgent for our ancestors. More than about 100 sheep was too many for one shepherd to manage anyway in the ancient world, never mind millions or billions. The cognitive scientist Rafael Núñez of the University of California at San Diego doesn’t buy the conventional wisdom that ‘number’ is a deep, evolved capacity....
EXCERPT: [...] Scientists have long claimed that our ability with numbers is indeed biologically evolved
I would say that.
Quote:But is it really? Being able to tell two things from three is useful, but being able to distinguish 152 from 153 must have been rather less urgent for our ancestors.
We generate numbers like 152 or 153 using logical processes. In this case addition, for any natural number n, n + 1. Once we have that addition process in mind, and it's precisely what we are doing when we count, then all we need is some system for inventing new names for numbers. If we do it repeatedly (recursively) eventually we will arrive at one hundred and fifty three. Doing that can generate any natural number that we need. Inventing a corresponding subtraction operation allows us to generate the integers. If we invent a division operation and start dividing them, we get the rational numbers.
So I don't think that the point is whether we can form an intuitive concept for every number. I doubt if we are much better at doing that than other animals. Where we excel, and where I think that we do have an innate ability, is in conceiving and employing logical operations.
then we can delve into roman, Egyptian, Greek, Persian counting and mathamatical systems.
i gues we can also look at sanskirt counting systems to.
mayan calenders ...
chinese counting ... (continuos ... thousands of years in one place well documented)
being able to define a measurement quantifiable to a fractional system enables the ability to build a structuce that saves the life of you, your family, your tribe, your community, your knowledge.
thus being able to seperate darwinian evolution from the concept of "natural" ability is probably a philisophical construct rather than a anthrapological cognitive construct.
Oct 31, 2017 06:43 PM
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