@freemo @2ck curious, tagme

@freemo Infant swimming.
@2ck I don't understand why an alien wouldn't understand our math if they had some intuitive understanding of higher concepts like primes. I'd think that would make our math even easier to understand.

@admin @freemo @aetios I guess color is another example. After thinking about it more, being more intelligent than a human isn't necessary. probably even orthogonal. the interface that we have with the world biases the things we think are basic and natural. an alien may be capable of understanding, but their perceptions may make our presentation of mathematics deeply unintuitive

@2ck Colors are interesting. We know different species see different colors than we do. I'd argue that it's easier to comprehend seeing in a more limited spectrum than ours, versus imagining a more complex one like that shrimp that can see in ultraviolet. Likewise I'd imagine a more advanced alien would understand our math easier than vice versa. I certainly agree that the difference would *color* the subjective experience, if you'll forgive the pun.

@admin I think you assume that the hypothetical aliens have the same senses that we do, but better. I would not make that assumption. Evolution could take a course that favors very rich perception of organic molecules over vision in some other world

@2ck Yes I was making an analogy to your OP. Regular senses -> heightened senses just as intelligence -> super-intelligence. I'm not sure that it's the best comparison but I was following your colors example. What came to my mind was this tribe I'd read about that always knew their orientation (wrt cardinal directions). For them learning euro style navigation should be simpler because they'd never have use external references to orient a map. Just like the alien in your hypothetical wouldn't have to use formula or calculators to determine primes. I'm sure it would be surprising to learn how we have to work to figure out something they simply know. I think that would be easier for them to understand than for us to understand how they just intuit the same thing.

@2ck the problem is that our physicists (total buzzkills) found that pretty much everything that we can preceptive (or are) as organisms is just one thing. That's how dumb we are. If the alien would be a creature of this one thing as well, then its perception and understanding of the world would have to be fundamentally very similar, as in its search for truth it would have to arrive, at some point, to a realization of that same one thing - a common ground, and the mathematics of that one thing described by us within that same one thing it will inevitably eventually discern and understand in whatever way it does. Otherwise a creature of some other thing would be absolutely imperceptible to us outside of some lab equipment, at which point, if it would also not speak math, we would never recognize it.
@admin
@freemo @aetios

@2ck

I'd say most people do not understand color, instinctually or otherwise. we have labels for colors that are completely arbitrary but we fail pretty badly at being able to objectively categorize color, in fact our physical limitations make it harder to understand than it otherwise would.

Take for example distinguishing between pure green and a composite green (made of blue and yellow). to a human they would look indistinguishable when in fact they arent even related colors in any way. You'd insist two colors with no similarity were the same to someone who actually understood the colors being presented.

@admin @aetios

@freemo @admin @aetios that's kinda what I was getting at, that we don't have to understand color. I admit it's not a great analogy in the context of my OP: I have a hard time extending it. My main theme though is that natural evolution could make weird creatures that don't calculate like we do because they don't need to. limitations in my knowledge of mathematics, evolution, and physics prevent me from taking that thought much further

@2ck

Yea but my point is without understanding color we as humans have very poor instinctual understanding of it.

Presumably the alien you refer to would not understand prime numbers but still be able to look at a number and know if its prime or not, even if it has no idea what being prime means.

But I cant think of any analogy like that in humans. For example color, humans **cant** identify colors without understanding. If shown a bunch of colors and told to match of the colors that were the same, we wouldnt be able to do it.

You and I **think** we have some automatic understanding of color only because you and I have the same instinctual system that agrees. So we assume if everyone agrees there must be some "truth" to it. But the fact is its just that we all have the same preprogramed fantasy as to what we think colors are and it doesnt match reality.

@admin @aetios

@freemo @admin @aetios I get your point. I don't know a solid example of a natural perception of a formal mathematical concept.

@2ck

Perhaps basic physics.. to play catch you need some instinctual understanding how the path of the ball. You should be able to see its speed and direction and extrapolate where it is headed. Most people probably dont understand the math but could catch a ball well enough.

@admin @aetios

@freemo A little birdie once told me that there are some tribes in either South America or Africa that don't have separate words Pink or Orange, indeed having the same word for either. The article I read was about the power of language in "programming" how one perceives reality, and this case was an example: since this tribe uses the same word to cover "both colors", to them they see the same color! There's also the case in that most Indo-European languages there are separations between an event, the cause of an event, and the perceiver of the event: in other words, strict separations of nouns and verbs. Whereas Chinese have many statements that pull "double-duty" as both nouns and verbs. Therefore, the Chinese mind can perceive a thing and an event (a noun and a verb) as the same "happening", which to many Western minds is an incomprehensible, alien concept! The ability of language to "alter reality" by using it to paint one word on a thing or event instead of another (one example: asking someone how they feel about the actions of "peaceful protesters" instead of saying "rioters", "anarchists", or "domestic terrorists" could give that person a positive perception of a given group and what they're doing instead of negative like the latter three would) could explain why so many believed in magic spells for thousands of years. @2ck @admin @aetios

@happymoomoo @freemo @2ck @admin @aetios

"the cause of an event, and the perceiver of the event: in other words, strict separations of nouns and verbs."

event vs spectator is not a noun - verb distinction, since both are nouns. You will have to clarify your thinking on this and repost

" "peaceful protesters" instead of saying "rioters", "anarchists", or "domestic terrorists""

this transition is not one of labels but of fact. destruction of property and attacks on people cannot be relabeled peaceful without lying or utterly changing the definition of peaceful

"could explain why so many believed in magic spells for thousands of years."

the logic you cite is not related to "magic" spells, which are on the contrary based on cause-and-effect mechanisms, not relabeling

@EMPEROR >event vs spectator is not a noun - verb distinction, since both are nouns. You will have to clarify your thinking on this and repost I'm not sure I could without writing a novella. I'm attempting to shoehorn multiple whole books, lectures, and audiobooks into a handful of sentences, and evidently failing. :agummysadcloud: >this transition is not one of labels but of fact. destruction of property and attacks on people cannot be relabeled peaceful without lying or utterly changing the definition of peaceful "Repeat a lie enough times and it becomes true." If you want a good scare, go look at the headlines of every major news/media and count how many times property destruction and attacks on people are relabeled as peaceful protests vs how many are calling them out for what they are. Afterwards, pause to consider that almost everyone who weren't actually there only gets their info from these outlets, believing them wholeheartedly. >the logic you cite is not related to "magic" spells, which are on the contrary based on cause-and-effect mechanisms, not relabeling Belief is a powerful thing; see the placebo effect. But here, too, I'm scrambling to come up with the right combination of words to get the ideas in my head across. But the following zen koan might help me: A priest is seen speaking a small prayer to a young, sick girl. A man nearby admonishes the priest, demanding an explanation for how a few words could help The priest sharply turns his head and glares a the man and rebukes sharply with, "You know nothing of these matters! You are a FOOL!!" The man is taken aback and retorts with many insults. The priest after several moments cuts the man off and explains, "If all it took was one word to hurt you, how can you doubt the power of spoken words to heal?" @2ck @admin @aetios @freemo

@happymoomoo @2ck @admin @aetios @freemo

don't quit your day job just yet

@EMPEROR Day jobs are for everyone not under lockdown. @2ck @admin @aetios @freemo

@happymoomoo

Sort of, you got some of the details off though.

The tribe you are referring to was the Himba tribe. The colors tested and in question was a light blue shade and green. They had one word which grouped green and blue together and no way to describe blue as its own thing, they did however have many different words for shades of green.

Finally they didnt look like the same color to them but instead simply took them a longer time in tests to distinguish the blue from green than the time it took them to distinguish shades of green.

@admin @aetios @2ck

@admin

swimming is a physical exercise though, not a mental one. Seems a very different beast.

@2ck