Why don't humans favor numbers?

[dstebbins]

I recently came across a theory from neurologists that the human brain is basically a computer. Basically, the techniques currently used by computer scientists to develop pattern-recognition artificial intelligence like on the game show contestant computer "Watson" just happen to be the same structure that evolution naturally gravitated towards when making the human brain.

 

 

But something still bugs me. If our brains are just computers, shouldn't we naturally favor numbers in our everyday lives?

 

And yes, sometimes we do prefer numbers ... when it's easy. For example, when we're trying to tell time, we usually assign a time based on a certain number of minutes and hours, and whether it's AM or PM. We also use a number to state what year it is because its easier to do that than to try and assign a unique name to each year.

 

But if we're just computers, shouldn't we favor numbers in many more aspects of our daily lives? For example, continuing the example of dates & times, we prefer to assign names to our days of the week and our months. We don't go to school/work on Days 2-6 of the week; we go to school & work on Monday through Friday. We are not currently in "Month #3;" we are currently in "March."

 

This is in stark contrast to computers, which are only saying things like "March" and "Tuesday" because it is translated the numbers for our convenience. Every day, it adds +1 to the "day counter," until it reaches 7, and then loops back to 1, and then spits out whatever word it is told to spit out corresponding to that day. On Day 4, if you tell the computer to translate it as "Banana," rather than "Wednesday," it will do so without a second thought.

 

Then there's the art of navigation. GPS navigation tools prefer to use post office-esque numbers. Even the people working the post office will prefer the use of their numerical addresses. However, that's because they're servicing the whole city, in a systematic manner. For everyday people, we usually prefer to navigate based on "turn left when I reach the yellow house with the blue slanted roof." When navigating based on landmarks, we usually group them according to shape, size, and color. These traits can usually be precisely quantified if we try hard enough. The size can be measured in meters across three dimensions; the shape can be measured by how many degrees the angles are; the color corresponds to a particular wavelength/frequency combination on the electromagnetic spectrum.

 

Yes, those traits can be quantified, but we almost never do. We aren't thinking about any of that when we're driving! Keeping track of how fast we're going is all the numbers we tend to care about when we're navigating!

 

This is in stark contrast with GPS technology, which prefers the use of numbers, calculating exactly how many feet we've traveled forward and at what lattitude-longitude coordinates you should make either a +90 degree or -90 degree turn, and simply tells us to turn left or right at designated spots. Again, it's being translated (or, in this case, simplified) for our benefit, whereas we tend to think of them in non-quantitative terms in the first instance.

 

So if our brains are just computers, shouldn't our brains naturally function like computers?

[swansont]

How long have your examples been around, or even number systems, compared to the evolutionary history of humans?

[dstebbins]

How long have your examples been around, or even number systems, compared to the evolutionary history of humans?

Well, while cars might be a recent invention, people have always navigated, even if they did so on foot, wagon, or horseback. So navigation has been around as long as organisms have.

 

While I don't know what the ancient cultures (e.g. Egypt & Mesopotamia) called their days of the week or their months of the year, I'm pretty sure they had some kind of names for them, rather than assigning numbers.

 

How long have numbers systems been around? At least as long as Mesopotamia. They used a 60-digit numbers system, in contrast with the 10-digit numbers system we use today. That's why we have 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour.

Edited March 28, 2017 by dstebbins

[swansont]

Well, while cars might be a recent invention, people have always navigated, even if they did so on foot, wagon, or horseback. So navigation has been around as long as organisms have.

 

While I don't know what the ancient cultures (e.g. Egypt & Mesopotamia) called their days of the week or their months of the year, I'm pretty sure they had some kind of names for them, rather than assigning numbers.

 

How long have numbers systems been around? At least as long as Mesopotamia. They used a 60-digit numbers system, in contrast with the 10-digit numbers system we use today. That's why we have 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour.

 

 

 

And humans have been around for how long?

[dstebbins]

 

 

 

And humans have been around for how long?

About 30,000 years.

 

What's your point?

[swansont]

About 30,000 years.

 

What's your point?

 

 

Um, really?

 

Homo sapiens emerged about 200k years ago, and the genus Homo has been around for millions. The point being that numbers are a very recent construct as compared to the evolution of the brain.

[dstebbins]

The point being that numbers are a very recent construct as compared to the evolution of the brain

No, numbers have been around since the Big Bang. The only thing that's recent is applying names to those quantities (e.g. "five" for English or "cinco" in Spanish).

 

A computer can recognize a quantity, and it couldn't care less what sounds the humans are making with their mouths to represent those quantities.

 

Quantities ... numbers ... mathematics ... the laws of physics ... those things have always existed long before humans assigned words to them, and they'll continue to exist for all eternity, even after humans go extinct.

[swansont]

No, numbers have been around since the Big Bang.

 

 

Not as such, no.

 

 

There's more to a computer than the processor. Are you typing 1's and 0's into your keyboard? No, there's an interface that does the translation. Even when coding, most of the code is not numbers at all. That only happens when you compile the program. We don't use numbers natively because of the interface we have with the world that has evolved over time does not use numbers in that way.

[John Cuthber]

 

 

So if our brains are just computers, shouldn't our brains naturally function like computers?

Not all computers use numbers.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

[mistermack]

Like all of our systems, our brains started off at a very basic level.

If worms were organising their lives through numbers, then I could see the point of the question.

We have a brain that evolved from that of an aquatic worm. It was responding to chemical signals etc.

At what point would numbers get involved, in such a way that our brains started operating like a computer?

 

In reality, the worm brain just got bigger and more complicated. Eventually, it got past the point of our chimpanzee-like ancestor, to something that can handle numbers, to some extent.

Nothing surprising in all of that.

 

Computers on the other hand, started out with numbers, and just got bigger and more complicated, in the way that it uses them.

Totally different.

[Endy0816]

September, October, November, December.

 

7, 8, 9, 10.

[Velocity_Boy]

Remember that computers don't favor numbers.

 

Nor does the software programs. Or the CPU.

 

All computers do to solve problems or find that restaurant you Googled or tell you what 5,797 times 9727 equals is manipulate electrons. Electrons sifted and directed and channelled through logic gates. That's it!

 

So our brain manipulate and channels neurotransmitters. Brain chemicals. It uses our sensory perceptions as input and our experiences and memory to discern the meaning of that input. There is no reason it should favor numbers. Which are just invented symbols, anyway.

 

I'll tell you what the human mind favors more than anything else.

 

It obsesses on.

 

 

Patterns.

 

And causes.

 

That is the brain's favorite thing to seek and discern.

 

Hope this helps.