On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Michael Swan <ms...@voyagergaming.com>wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-07-14 at 07:48 -0700, Matt Mahoney wrote:
> > Actually, Fibonacci numbers can be computed without loops or recursion.
> >
> > int fib(int x) {
> > return round(pow((1+sqrt(5))/2, x)/sqrt(5));
> > }
> ;) I know. I was wondering if someone would pick up on it. This won't
> prove that brains have loops though, so I wasn't concerned about the
> shortcuts.
> > unless you argue that loops are needed to compute sqrt() and pow().
> >
> I would find it extremely unlikely that brains have *, /, and even more
> unlikely to have sqrt and pow inbuilt. Even more unlikely, even if it
> did have them, to figure out how to combine them to round(pow((1
> +sqrt(5))/2, x)/sqrt(5)).
>
> Does this mean we should discount all maths that use any complex
> operations ?
>
> I suspect the brain is full of look-up tables mainly, with some fairly
> primitive methods of combining the data.
>
> eg What's 6 / 3 ?
> ans = 2 most people would get that because it's been wrote learnt, a
> common problem.
>
> What 3456/6 ?
> we don't know, at least not from the top of our head.
>
>
>
I'd argue that mathematical operations are unnecesary, we don't even have
integer support inbuilt. The number meme is a bit of a hack on top of
language that has been modified throughout the years. We have a peripheral
that allows us decent support for the numbers 1-10, but beyond that numbers
are basically words to which several different finicky grammars can be
applied as far as our brains are concerned.
-------------------------------------------
agi
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