

Evolutionary maths [2007] - RiderOfGiraffes
http://plus.maths.org/content/evolutionary-maths

======
maurycy
Unfortunately, I do not have access to Klessinger, Szczerbinski, Varley, 2007,
the publication mentioned.

I have a suspicion, though, that this research would be much more productive
if the researches had deeper understanding of philosophy, especially of
mathematics and language, and subjects such as symbolic logic and model
theory.

Few years passed since my last studies in this area, and I have practically no
neuroscience knowledge, but the simplest bet would be to say that the
operator/verb example are just special cases of the relationship between
objects.

The bootstrapping process might be explained by the fact that in mathematics
we encounter purer form of this mechanism. In case of language, there might be
much more distractions, making it harder to muscle this one particular area.

------
CallMeV
Churnalism pops up again, its proverbial ugly head once again raised for the
cliches, its existence in this article thoroughly destroying its validity
right down to its core assumptions, so that nothing remains to rise from its
ashes.

How long has it been since the "Amazonian tribe that cannot count" has been
refuted? What is the name of this "Amazonian tribe?" How did the
anthropologist hear of the existence of this tribe? How did he contact with
it? How long did he study with it? How many people did it claim before it was
made extinct by logging operations?

So many other questions that I'll bet could not be answered because that
damned "Amazonian tribe that can only count in binary" never existed.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
The book "Here's Looking at Euclid" (entitled "Alex's adventures in
Numberland" in the UK) by Alex Bellos documents a conversation with Pierre
Pica, currently investigating the Pirahã in the Amazon, a tribe that
apparently has no interest in counting, and appear not to be able to count
accurately:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2210392>

Copyright seems to have expired on the excerpt that was in the Guardian, but
it's pretty well discussed in this recent book.

You can find much of Pica's work on-line if you choose. Here is one reference:

<http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/319.htm>

In short, I'm unconvinced that this is sheer and pure "churnalism," or that
the Amazonian tribe that cannot count" really has been refuted.

ADDED IN EDIT:

Alex's book is here:

<http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0747597162#reader-link>

and you can click on the "Search Inside" at left and search for "Pica."

