I think a lot of our abstract reasoning ability results from our being social creatures, and having to create mental models of other people/groups/tribes, etc. to predict their behaviors under different scenarios. To guess what they want, what they will do, what is likely to happen if this happens or if that happens. In our evolutionary environment, nothing was more complex than other humans or groups of humans, and the smarter we became, the smarter we had to get to maintain some ability to model and predict the behavior of others.
It is then, perhaps not too major of a leap to turn this "abstract modeling of a systems behavior" ability from analyzing people or groups, to analyzing other systems, be they games, puzzles, engineering, mathematical objects, contemplating physical laws, etc. A question might arise, why don't other social animals have similar abstract reasoning abilities? Perhaps they do and cannot communicate it, or perhaps communication itself adds so many additional layers of complexity to the analyzing of social systems and people that it required the evolution of special purpose structures in the brain which enhanced abstract reasoning abilities. Still a third option, is that human analytical capability largely relies on the high level of language processing capacity of the brain as a necessary ingredient in performing some forms of abstract reasoning. -- I think there are exceptions and counter examples in many of these cases, for example Tesla could visually manipulate designs in his mind, and high level Chess players can see and manipulate board states in their minds without relying on language to represent those states. Jason On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 6:44 AM, Steven Ridgway <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 01:25 Dr Russell Standish wrote: > > "But presumably the argument is about certain cognitive skills > which helped our species be extraordinarily successful, and also gave us > the capability to understand algebraic topology." > > I've always found it a bit mysterious that humans are so good at abstract > mathematics. I can see that the evolutionary pressures to improve tool > making and hunting skills could have given us basic mathematical > capabilities - but we are far better at it than seems reasonable. i.e. it > seems a stretch to imagine our ability to understand differential equations > and prove Fermat's last theorem just fell into place as an accidental by > product of something else. > > It seems to me that a lot of complex engineering in our brains must exist > to support the level of abstract reasoning we are capable of - and I don't > see much evolutionary advantage to explain how this evolved. > > We are familiar with the idea that a large multiverse could explain the > apparent fine tuning of our universe to support conscious observers. I.e. > given we are conscious observers it shouldn't be surprising that we find > ourselves in a part of the multiverse that allows our existence. > > However, right now we aren't just conscious observers, we are conscious > observers pondering the unreasonable effectiveness of brains to do > mathematics. Maybe similarly to the fine tuning argument we shouldn't be > surprised to find ourselves in a part of the multiverse where brains did > develop mathematical ability. It would have been extremely unlikely for our > brains to have evolved the way they did - but in a sufficiently large > multiverse we will inevitably find ourselves in the place where it did - > given that we are observer moments that must have exactly that kind of > abstract reasoning capability to understand this point! > > Is it valid to use this kind of reasoning? To use the details of the type > of conscious experience we are having right now to condition the type of > universe we expect to find ourselves in? I'm not sure to be honest - but I > think there is a mystery to be explained so the idea is appealing. > > Note if it's true that evolving mathematical capability was a long shot, > then a consequence of it would be that it would be very unlikely that we > find technologically advanced aliens in the observable universe. There are > a lot of stars out there - but the small probability of brains evolving > abstract reasoning would overwhelm that I suspect. > > - Steven Ridgway > > > > > -- > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > ---------------- > Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Senior Research Fellow [email protected] > Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ------------------------------------------------------------ > ---------------- > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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