A theory of Math and the Development of Early Man
Okay, this theory has been in my head for a few days. I got to get it out!
Do you know that a baby's perception of numbers are very different from ours? Babyies think of numbers and quantity COMPLETELY different than adults. And children have to be taught how to count. If they are never taught how to count, they would experience numbers logarithmically. The way we think of numbers is sort of... artificial.
Honestly, instead of me trying to explain how babies and an Amazon tribe thinks logarithmically, I'm going to stick this link to RadioLab.
Take a few minutes to listen from 04:00 to the end in order to understand what Robert Krullwich, Jad Abumrad and Lulu Miller can explain much more elegantly than I.
So, almost all children in the world learn this world of numbers from their parents/school/culture. But how did we come to count like this in the first place? Did the gods teach us? Aliens?
First off, let's dance.... with a bird.
A study was done on a bird to figure out if a bird was dancing (moving its body to the rhythm of a song) or just moving to noise or other ques so it just looks like its dancing. It showed that birds can indeed dance because it takes nerves and muscles control in order for a bird to create noise to communicate, dancing might be a side-effect. Sound effects muscles.
Again, I'm not the best to explain this study, Adena Schachner and Bob MacDonald are better at it, so here's a link to Quirks & Quarks. Or just listen to the mp3.
So, imagine the first tribes of man trying to make sense of the world. A shaman has the power to talk to the gods by doing a certain dance. If the shaman, most likely high on the autistic spectrum, does this dance that he created, the rains will come, the hunt will be good, the winter will end.
But the shaman is getting old and knows that some day he will die. If there's no one to do the dance, then the world will end. So he has to teach the next generation to dance this dance properly.
Now, I have personally done stage performance. I loosely call it "choreography" but I did need to learn a few acts.
And what's the easiest way to memorize a specific dance?
one - two - three - KICK
five - six - seven - TURN
nine - ten - eleven - STEP
So, through dance, early man thought of numbers as a sequence in time than as logarithmic quantity. And counting the beats "five - six - seven - eight" we were able to make the abstract connection between quantity and sequence.
And now we have math. The kind that eventually charted the stars and the days and the years. And then we got into measurements and geometry and calculus and physics.
I wonder if it would be easy for mathematician to learn the Cha-Cha?
...okay. I'm sure there might be a good argument against the "Dance Theory" because I wouldn't be surprised if that Amazon Tribe mentioned in RadioLab could dance. BUT dance is temporal. Time is, at least to us, sequential. So counting days might have also been a factor in the way we think of math. Think of it. Early man may have noticed that the Moon goes through its cycles. When the moon is full, its easiest to hunt at night. Then someone might have realized that it takes 28 days for the moon to cycle.
Anyway, these are just theories that might sound interesting in a comic or things I use to sound smart to my friends at a bar.
P.S. If any real scientists think I actually have something here, then put a link to my webcomics on the scientific paper you'll eventually write. www.theorofeverythingcomics.com If some other scientist had already written a paper on this, then it would be cool if you posted a link in the comments.
Do you know that a baby's perception of numbers are very different from ours? Babyies think of numbers and quantity COMPLETELY different than adults. And children have to be taught how to count. If they are never taught how to count, they would experience numbers logarithmically. The way we think of numbers is sort of... artificial.
Honestly, instead of me trying to explain how babies and an Amazon tribe thinks logarithmically, I'm going to stick this link to RadioLab.
Take a few minutes to listen from 04:00 to the end in order to understand what Robert Krullwich, Jad Abumrad and Lulu Miller can explain much more elegantly than I.
So, almost all children in the world learn this world of numbers from their parents/school/culture. But how did we come to count like this in the first place? Did the gods teach us? Aliens?
First off, let's dance.... with a bird.
A study was done on a bird to figure out if a bird was dancing (moving its body to the rhythm of a song) or just moving to noise or other ques so it just looks like its dancing. It showed that birds can indeed dance because it takes nerves and muscles control in order for a bird to create noise to communicate, dancing might be a side-effect. Sound effects muscles.
Again, I'm not the best to explain this study, Adena Schachner and Bob MacDonald are better at it, so here's a link to Quirks & Quarks. Or just listen to the mp3.
So, imagine the first tribes of man trying to make sense of the world. A shaman has the power to talk to the gods by doing a certain dance. If the shaman, most likely high on the autistic spectrum, does this dance that he created, the rains will come, the hunt will be good, the winter will end.
But the shaman is getting old and knows that some day he will die. If there's no one to do the dance, then the world will end. So he has to teach the next generation to dance this dance properly.
Now, I have personally done stage performance. I loosely call it "choreography" but I did need to learn a few acts.
And what's the easiest way to memorize a specific dance?
one - two - three - KICK
five - six - seven - TURN
nine - ten - eleven - STEP
So, through dance, early man thought of numbers as a sequence in time than as logarithmic quantity. And counting the beats "five - six - seven - eight" we were able to make the abstract connection between quantity and sequence.
And now we have math. The kind that eventually charted the stars and the days and the years. And then we got into measurements and geometry and calculus and physics.
I wonder if it would be easy for mathematician to learn the Cha-Cha?
...okay. I'm sure there might be a good argument against the "Dance Theory" because I wouldn't be surprised if that Amazon Tribe mentioned in RadioLab could dance. BUT dance is temporal. Time is, at least to us, sequential. So counting days might have also been a factor in the way we think of math. Think of it. Early man may have noticed that the Moon goes through its cycles. When the moon is full, its easiest to hunt at night. Then someone might have realized that it takes 28 days for the moon to cycle.
Anyway, these are just theories that might sound interesting in a comic or things I use to sound smart to my friends at a bar.
P.S. If any real scientists think I actually have something here, then put a link to my webcomics on the scientific paper you'll eventually write. www.theorofeverythingcomics.com If some other scientist had already written a paper on this, then it would be cool if you posted a link in the comments.
Labels: blog, lecture, philosophy, podcast, science
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