The Pirahã are off by one (2020)

Post by thebrainkid » Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 7:00 AM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #10

Guthur wrote: post #3

I've been thinking about something related recently. I was wondering if the only number that truly exists is One. Zero is nothing and therefore doesn't exist, and all that does exist is eventual composed of One.

I had a similar thought about numbers that exist or don't. In my book, something like two or ten exists - because my kid can hold up 2 fingers and say 2 or all of them and say 10. I am saying that you can actually count to those numbers in physical space. But at some point, the number is like larger than the number of atoms in the universe (or whatever you think is the biggest domain we can count) and once you go pas…

Post by Guthur » Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 7:54 AM UTC

Guthur wrote: post #13

TimedToasts wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Zero is nothing" is my first objection here. Zero is not always Nothing; I feel like there are many mathematical zeros (including Nothing). The duality of existence and non-existence means that We all share fundamentals, totally agree with you there.

Zero is not even absence it would be absolutely nothing, irreducibly nothing.

Post by viciousvoxel » Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 8:49 AM UTC

Guthur wrote: post #14

Guthur wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero is not even absence it would be absolutely nothing, irreducibly nothing.

Though a strange thought has occurred that existence of One implies Zero by it's lack of absence. But this feel incoherent because these two poles can never exist together.

Post by poulpy123 » Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 10:19 AM UTC

naniwaduni wrote: post #4

StopTheWorld wrote: post #2

> This is seen as proof of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that words determine the concepts you can use: Pirahã can’t instantly compare collections of objects to see which is bigger (e.g. a pile of four batteries next to a pile of five) while people in cultures with other number systems can. My goodness. Sapir and Whorf had this theory, but neither gathered much data to prove it, and attempts to do so since Whorf's deat…

Whorfianism is certainly oversold, but it's hard to come down completely against it in the face of evidence from color identification. If it weren't that people make these claims about Pirahã all the time, "it's slightly slower to compare counts of things if you don't have basic numerals for them" is exactly the sort of thing at about the right level of automaticity to sound plausible.

Post by bjoli » Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 12:10 PM UTC

StopTheWorld wrote: post #2

> This is seen as proof of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that words determine the concepts you can use: Pirahã can’t instantly compare collections of objects to see which is bigger (e.g. a pile of four batteries next to a pile of five) while people in cultures with other number systems can. My goodness. Sapir and Whorf had this theory, but neither gathered much data to prove it, and attempts to do so since Whorf's deat…