
How natural is numeracy? - Hooke
https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-humans-have-numbers-are-they-cultural-or-innate
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ak4g
>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.

I would like some citations for this. This is the first I've heard of this,
and I previously have assumed that it was universally accepted that this was
_not_ the case.

This article makes similar claims at multiple points, without corroboration.
"researchers have concluded", "researchers often assume", "researchers have
argued", for arguments that I have never heard made.

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jdblair
The book "Where Mathematics Comes From"[1] by Lakoff and Núñez makes a
lengthy, detailed argument that numeracy is evolved, not universal. I didn't
find myself agreeing with everything in it, but I no longer take it for
granted that math is a universal concept.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From)

~~~
barrkel
Can you explain what you mean by evolved as opposed to universal?

Because from my perspective, they mean the same thing when applied to this
context. That is, if numeracy is evolved, everyone is fundamentally numerate
at some level. And if numeracy is universal, then everybody is fundamentally
numerate. They're both nature, not nurture.

What do you mean by those words?

(Personally, I think that numbers are mostly learned, but that the brain has
an evolved aptitude for symbolic systems, mathematics being just one of many.
I don't think any innate concept of number goes much beyond order of magnitude
(i.e. logarithmic) relative differences.)

~~~
jdblair
I mean, universal across the universe. There is a common assumption that
mathematics is a common language that we could use to communicate with aliens.
The notion is that, for example, the concept of prime numbers would be
discovered everywhere in the universe just as an intelligence would discover
that hydrogen is the simplest atom.

To go further, the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis formalizes the notion that
the universe itself is math, and that we are just discovering the math of the
universe as we develop mathematics.

I'm personally agnostic on the universality of mathematics. Math is a
tremendous tool for describing the universe, but I am willing to consider that
a different intelligence might invent some accurate and non-mathematical
predictive model.

~~~
beojan
> The notion is that, for example, the concept of prime numbers would be
> discovered everywhere in the universe just as an intelligence would discover
> that hydrogen is the simplest atom.

The concept of prime numbers is a lot more fundamental than hydrogen being the
simplest atom. You could conceivably have a universe where every element is an
elementary particle, but you couldn't have a universe where you can put two
and two together and get five. Nor could you possibly have a universe where
you can take five of something, and divide it into equal sized groups, unless
each group has one item or you only have one group.

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sushisource
"‘The brain, a biological organ with a genetically defined wiring scheme, is
predisposed to acquire a number system,’ said the neurobiologist Andreas
Nieder of the University of Tübingen in Germany. ‘Culture can only shape our
number faculty within the limits of the capacities of the brain. Without this
predisposition, number symbols would lie [forever] beyond our grasp.’"

Well that seems like absolute nonsense. How do we understand computers then?
Or almost literally any art form?

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civilian
Because computers are just logic combined with numbers. (The 32gb RAM is
attached to the motherboard, which has 32gb.) And for art, we _also_ have
other brain systems that understand how to judge beauty in people and
landscapes.

I think a more interesting example is quantum physics. Humans have a difficult
time understanding it, because it doesn't jive with our normative
understanding of the world. But we are still able to understand it, because it
is just very messy logic.

~~~
sushisource
Right, which seems sort of exactly the argument in the article. "Numbers" are
just us extrapolating from "quantity".

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tdeck
I'm surprised there was no mention of the Pirahã, a tribe made famous by their
apparent innumeracy:

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5695/496.full](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5695/496.full)

[http://langcog.stanford.edu/papers/FEFG-
cognition.pdf](http://langcog.stanford.edu/papers/FEFG-cognition.pdf)

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DonbunEf7
Núñez is not a mathematician and claims an anti-Platonic view of maths which
is totally inconsistent with the reality of practicing mathematicians over the
past century. In particular, I doubt that they grok the extent to which maths
and physics have collaborated, and all of the predictions in particle
colliders which started out as quirks of equations on blackboards.

~~~
Retra
Nothing about the practice of mathematics over the last century requires (or
is even advantaged by) a platonic view.

~~~
beojan
A Platonic view of mathematics, not a Platonic view of the physical universe.

That is, when we say '1', we mean the abstract concept of unity, not one of
any particular physical thing.

