Did Ancient Farming Needs Shape Math and Language Development?

[micromass]

Again, the proof of the pudding is in the taste. The burden of proof is not on me to justify my argument for a model that explains why humans could not do math nor speak nor produce written language prior to 6000 years ago...the burden of proof is for someone to explain to me a model of why humans could do these things and we have no archaeological record of it.

And now you misunderstand the burden of proof. You're making the claim that they couldn't do the math 6000 years ago, so you need to prove the claim. I am merely saying I don't believe your claim, so I don't have a burden of proof.
There are two situations for a claim A. You can say: claim A happens or claim A did not happen. Both have burden of proof. If you say "not enough evidence has been presented", then you don't have burden of proof until there is enough evidence.
So what I think you're saying here is how did this capacity for math spread so widely so fast? [/QUOTE]

No. I am saying that 6000 years ago it was impossible for Americans and other cultures to come into contact. It just couldn't happen. But both developed math skills.

Does it really make sense that humans had some latent capacity for written language, cuneiform, the ability to construct cities, etc. etc. for thousands of years, and it just so happened that one day somebody woke out of a stupor and said, hey guys, let's build a city and organize our economics with some symbolic structure and scribblings?

That's where evidence points to. The importance of math came from organizing a big economy. The question therefore is why people started building big cities suddenly.

 

[DiracPool]

No. I am saying that 6000 years ago it was impossible for Americans and other cultures to come into contact. It just couldn't happen. But both developed math skills.

Ok, so it was impossible..So how did they both develop math skills at (nearly) the same time? I'm not fact checking this btw, right now, I'll just accept your argument.

That's where evidence points to. The importance of math came from organizing a big economy. The question therefore is why people started building big cities suddenly.

Ok, so let me rephrase this in light of my argument. You are saying here that the modern (mathematical, etc.) capacities of the human mind were latent (for how long?) prior to 6000 years ago, and that perhaps it was a critical mass of some sort of humans gathering in a community that sparked a cognitive revolution that led to the building of cities and beyond?

 

[micromass]

Ok, so it was impossible..So how did they both develop math skills at (nearly) the same time? I'm not fact checking this btw, right now, I'll just accept your argument.

I don't know. But me not knowing does not provide any evidence for your model.

 

[micromass]

Ok, so let me rephrase this in light of my argument. You are saying here that the modern (mathematical, etc.) capacities of the human mind were latent (for how long?) prior to 6000 years ago, and that perhaps it was a critical mass of some sort of humans gathering in a community that sparked a cognitive revolution that led to the building of cities and beyond?

To be clear, we don't know that they didn't have "advanced" math prior to 6000 years ago, we just have no evidence that they did (which is not surprising since it seems difficult to find original sources for anything math related in history, just look at the amount of original Greek texts we have, almost none!). So it is likely that some people 10000 years ago suddenly found an amazing math notation system, but then it was disregarded by everybody else because it was not useful to them. It only became useful once you needed to work with big numbers and do difficult calculations. Those things are needed in big cities and empires.

 

[DiracPool]

So it is likely that some people 10000 years ago suddenly found an amazing math notation system, but then it was disregarded by everybody else because it was not useful to them.

Likely? That's abject conjecture of the most serious kind. This kind of thinking posits that we, as humans, were sitting around in tribes for thousands of years, while, at the same time having an "amazing math notation system," that for some reason "Thog" the caveman wasn't able to "shop" successfully to the rest of the community or the other tribes. Does that fit with the quality of opportunism, greed, and entreprenurialism that runs rampant in society since 6000 years ago?

It only became useful once you needed to work with big numbers and do difficult calculations.

See, this is where I disagree with you. I think these things become useful once we have the capacity to do them. There's a great tradition of the arts that sees artistic expression coming from deep inner need to express for the sake of expression rather than for some practical need. It's even been said that Newton used to calculate logs out to extreme decimals for no practical purpose other than he liked to calculate.

 

[micromass]

Likely? That's abject conjecture of the most serious kind. This kind of thinking posits that we, as humans, were sitting around in tribes for thousands of years, while, at the same time having an "amazing math notation system," that for some reason "Thog" the caveman wasn't able to "shop" successfully to the rest of the community or the other tribes. Does that fit with the quality of opportunism, greed, and entreprenurialism that runs rampant in society since 6000 years ago?

Yep. And I actually have some evidence for this. Consider the case of Tasmania. Tasmania was connected with a landbridge to Australia for a long time. Thus the Tasmanians and the Australians had the same technology. This technology consisted of eg fishing. Around 10000 years ago, the landbridge with Australia became severed and Tasmania was isolated for thousands of years. During that time, Tasmanians actually lost their fishing abilities. When the Europeans finally discovered Tasmania, they had no noteworthy technology, as opposed to the Australian aboriginals which did have some more.

You have to admit that the ability to fish is much more useful than an "amazing math notation system"! And if small isolated societies can lose their ability to fish, I see no hope for some useless math to be very succesful.

Also, before we knew farming, humans were hunters-gatherers. This means that virtually all humans had to work hard to obtain their food. This leaves little time for discussing amazing math. With farming, you have better food yields. And thus a society could support a different class of people who didn't need to make food every day and who could perhaps think more about theoretical stuff.

See here for more reading: http://edge.org/conversation/jared_...d-differently-on-different-continents-for-the

See, this is where I disagree with you. I think these things become useful once we have the capacity to do them. There's a great tradition of the arts that sees artistic expression coming from deep inner need to express for the sake of expression rather than for some practical need. It's even been said that Newton used to calculate logs out to extreme decimals for no practical purpose other than he liked to calculate.

Even recently, people have done amazing things, which have forgotten through time. For example, in the 19th century, there was an immense surge in projective geometry. And I have read some of that research, and it is simply amazing and beautiful. However, only a handful of mathematicians nowadays know a lot about what has been done then. It just wasn't useful even to mathematicians. We are still doing some kind of projective geometry today, but in a completely different style and with a different purpose. Even math research is susceptible to fads, and within 100 years a lot of what has been done has been completely forgetten. So just the capacity and the ability of doing something does not means that it is useful and does not mean that it will be preserved through time.

 

[Hornbein]

And then only one civilization (Greeks) ever made the jump towards deductive, axiomatic math.

Perhaps, but India invented axiomatic logic. It came to England via George Everest, who was a close associate of George Boole.

 

[Hornbein]

The burden of proof is not on me to justify my argument for a model that explains why humans could not do math nor speak nor produce written language prior to 6000 years ago.

The Mahabharata precedes written language. It was passed along via memorization. A few practitioners remain in India.

 

[micromass]

Perhaps, but India invented axiomatic logic. It came to England via George Everest, who was a close associate of George Boole.

When? Independent of the ancient Greeks?

 

[Hornbein]

When? Independent of the ancient Greeks?

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ancient hindu texts formal logic

Wikipedia:
Logic began independently in ancient India and continued to develop to early modern times without any known influence from Greek logic.[32]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Medhatithi_Gautama&action=edit&redlink=1 (c. 6th century BC) founded the anviksiki school of logic.[33] The Mahabharata(12.173.45), around the 5th century BC, refers to the anviksiki and tarka schools of logic. Pāṇini (c. 5th century BC) developed a form of logic (to which Boolean logic has some similarities) for his formulation of Sanskrit grammar. Logic is described by Chanakya (c. 350-283 BC) in his Arthashastra as an independent field of inquiry.[34]
...
Since 1824, Indian logic attracted the attention of many Western scholars, and has had an influence on important 19th-century logicians such as Charles Babbage, Augustus De Morgan, and particularly George Boole, as confirmed by his wife Mary Everest Boole, who wrote in 1901 an "open letter to Dr Bose", which was titled "Indian Thought and Western Science in the Nineteenth Century" and stated:[40][41] "Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830-1865".

 

[zoobyshoe]

What does that prove, except that they were more vulnerable to nature.

No, It proves it isn't necessary to have calendars to have successful agriculture.

In any case, how can anyone be sure of how they actually worked things out? Without a detailed written record, we couldn't tell what proto mathematical tricks they were using.

The only thing you need for agricultural timing, it should be obvious, is simple memory of the course of the seasons for a year, and the knowledge that that fairly short cycle repeats endlessly. It isn't necessary to know a specific date. It isn't necessary to know there are 365 days in a year. All you need to know is things like, you have about a 4 1/2 moon window to grow a plant that takes about 2 1/2 moons to mature. That sort of rule of thumb.

And, we have lots of detailed written records of how various primitive peoples worked out all kinds of things, records made by literate people who encountered and interacted with them, both ancient and modern.

Googling tells me the Sumerians had an astrological system. The calendars they worked out were probably more linked to that than anything else.

"Advanced" mathematical notation can be found in any big city throughout history. So I think it is reasonably that the existence of the big cities gave a big impetus towards doing math.

It only became useful once you needed to work with big numbers and do difficult calculations. Those things are needed in big cities and empires.

I agree with this. Math was needed to build cities and empires and was explored for those purposes, and the converse is true; the existence of cities and empires allowed for the dedicated mathematician, the architect, the accountant, the astrologer, etc. In more primitive societies everyone has to be able to do everything such that no one gets really expert at anything the way city dwellers can.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Necessity is the mother of invention. The development of math enhanced survival and population growth.

 

[Hornbein]

The Balinese calendar is 420 days. It is numerological.

 

[Isaacsname]

"zoobyshoe " The Romans used pebbles "

They used them for what ?

Isopsephy ?

About the only thing they used pebbles for was to teach figurate numbers { but that is entirely another conversation }

Babylonian S type cuniform is the basis of what I am discussing, thanks, not rocks

 

[Isaacsname]

Look, try to keep an accurate calendar using months that are off from the average Synodic length and see what happens

Average SYM = 29.53 days

12.369 SYM / year = 365.25657

That's a Julian year

Now try to keep that with a 30 day month

12.369 SYM / year x 30 days = 371.07

Now look at how far off you drift in the space of just 5 years

{ 30 day months } = 1855.35 days

{ 29.53 day months } = 1826.28285 days

In just 5 years you are off by almost a full month

That is disastrous for a farmer who is trying to keep a schedule

I guess some of you have never attempted farming on a large scale ?

 

[Isaacsname]

If you don't think you need to know the cycles accurately, you have obviously never farmed

It's not as easy as just walking outside and throwing seeds on the ground

I don't think you are considering the logistics of large scale manual farming, this much is obvious

also, simply by information entropy in historical records you can plainly see the information that was the most important is what they left the most records of:

Farming and astronomical cycles are two of these things they must have deemed important otherwise they wouldn't have been so meticulous about keeping records

Unless there is a plethora of undiscovered cuniform regarding how to sew buttons on shirts, or how to wage war, or how to tell lame jokes, and I haven't seen those yet

 

[Evo]

It is well known. I already linked a book earlier in the thread that discusses this.

You linked a book? It just mentions positions of constellations for planting times? I already agreed with that, but I don't see any reference to math in your post.

I think this could be a really interesting thread, but we need to do some clean up and follow rules (not you), nothing has improved since Drakkith's re-opening message. If this thread is going to become meaningful, we need to agree on some rules.

 

[Evo]

Ok, ok, don't get all upset, just hold on a second, nobody even asked me for sources yet and you're jumping my case. If you wanted sources you should just ask

I'm not upset, our rules stipulate acceptable sources must be cited, that was brought up by micromass and then mentor drakkith said so right before you posted again without sources.

It seems this thread continues to deteriorate into arguing back and forth. I don't have much time and perhaps this was already linked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics#Prehistoric_mathematics