Maths and the Brain: Does It Run in Our Genes?

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alias25
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erm..i always seem to relate maths to everything i think...i don't do it on purpose ..but when i think of people they always seem to have a corresponding maths symbol or even plain numbers...and they change throughout that thought. so one person doesn't all ways have an asociated(sp) maths symbol. even in dreams i seem to have some form of math referring to me and it also changes. i was wondering does this mean anything...im quite good at maths (not boasting or anything). do u think maths / any topic can be natural to people? the way their brains are developed? or genetic?
 
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Hi,

If your first name is Pentium and your lastname is Intel, there is some few chances you're a computer. :smile: BTW, every human has his own way to describe the world with images and some of us, use more math ones than others. It seems that is your case.
The natural way for brain is not math but images and we use images to do our maths works.
 
I don't know whether it is genetic or not, but can at least attest to the diversity. I have a friend who's thought is so multi-sensory and vivid, that considering an action is often very difficult to disassociate from performing that action. For someone else I know, thought is visual alchemy, with strange image barrages combining with each other to inexplicably repersent the world - consequently, articulating his emotions or ideas is challenging. For another friend, everything has an example in memory, and his thoughts are like the old-fashioned detective's bulletin board with all the lines drawn between experiences and events (except without that image - he just cross-references directly). Myself, I rarely, rarely ever see a single image. When I do, even the act of visualising it is abstract, unconscious. I simply know it is in memory currently, and capable of being analyzed for whatever content I desire. Everything is verbal, or at least has a verbal texture to it, if it isn't explicitly articulated.

So maybe somasimple is right in saying that the average person is visual; I don't really know, but I'm willing to believe since most people at least have a visual aspect. Mine usually don't. Yours seems very interesting - what were you thoughts like before you were introduced to mathematics?

lates,
cotarded
 
i'm more of a nurture supporter...but i can't deny the possibility that genetics may make you more susceptible to things, however it does not enhance/hone your skills, that is what your environment does. Rathre than thinking in years think how many milliseconds you've lived because to my knowledge that's one of the fundamental time scales to which neuronal firing occurs. And your environment isn't just your parents but your other family members, familys friends, neighbour...even your housing geometry, the media and art your exposed to etc.
 
It could be just a mnemonic you use because you're very comfortable with math, so it makes it easy to remember people if you think of math with them.

Alternatively, check out some of the threads on synaesthesia in this forum. This could be something related to that if you really see these symbols when looking at people.
 
alias25, have you read the book "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon? If not, I think you would very much enjoy it.

The notion of associating people with numbers and math symbols is completely alien to me, but math in general is completely alien to me. Since you like math and are good at it, though, it makes perfect sense for this to be how you make associations. I suppose a music fanatic might associate specific melodies, or maybe just sounds with people they think about. I'm visual/verbal in my thinking.
 
thanks for replies..erm i don't think i have synathesia..i don't see maths when i actually see people only when i think of people and its always changing as i said before...maybe its because of the change in the way people relate to me/ i relate to people..hmm. yea, zoobyshoe i read that book it was great.
i remember when i was little when i was trying to memorise things like sentances and paragraphs i would see them in my head ..but it was almost as if it was out in the real world, and i would see each sentance or paragraph like one would be right infront of me the next one would be at a 90 degrees angle going virtcally up the next 90 degs to this one to the left and the next one maybe below the previous one but slightly shifted to the left...i can't remember the exact pattern but it was something like that..kinda maze thing and i could go back and forth along it. i didnt do it conciously it just occurred while i was remembering things
nowadays i don't remember things like that.