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The brain is actually really good at math - the best example I've heard of this (I think from the book 'Blink') is catching a flyball - in an instant someone is

by klik99 9y ago

The brain is actually really good at math - the best example I've heard of this (I think from the book 'Blink') is catching a flyball - in an instant someone is able to calculate the trajectory, wind speed, spin and coordinate with it's own body to run at the right speed to be in the right place when it lands. Now of course that takes experience but it's not just pattern matching since training allows people to adapt to new and unseen conditions. But anytime you have a 'gut' feeling, it's usually because of some behind the scenes calculations. Translating maths into a mess of symbols and deconstructing it consciously is of course a laborious process - but AFAIK no computer is good at that either. My own personal metaphor is the conscious mind as programmer and the unconscious mind as computer. If I correctly program my unconscious mind I can spontaneously realize the right answer far faster than I can understand why.

klik99 9y ago
But otherwise a good article... I realize this is getting hung up on the clickbaity title...
ptr_void 9y ago
> someone is able to calculate the trajectory The result is the similar if one was to calculate such trajectories, but I am not sure what happens in the mind can be called calculation. How can it be properly tested that brain indeed calculates trajectories when catching a ball? Would practicing catching ball improve their relevant mathematical abilities demonstrable on paper?
- travmatt 9y ago
  What if the brain operated more like a neural network than a calculator? Your second point seems to raise another, separate issue, whether or not knowledge gained can be applied in an unrelated context, or even if these two calculations would be performed in the same ways by the brain, such that training in one yields greater efficiency in the other. I'd wager that practicing hand eye coordination would yield greater efficiency in other task related to processing visual input, maybe video games.
kenbellows 9y ago
I don't agree with that description of what the brain does when you catch a ball, or with the principle it's proposing. I don't think the brain does any kind of calculations to figure out how to catch the ball; I think it's effectively muscle memory. If you've never caught anything before, your brain will have no clue what to do. As you practice running to catch things, I think a better description of your subconscious process is something like: "The ball (or whatever) looks like it's growing bigger in my visual field at a certain rate. A previous time when it grew bigger at a rate kind of like that, I applied about x force in the legs, and I didn't get there in time. Another time when it was growing at about this rate, I put applied a larger amount of force y, and the ball landed behind me. This time I'll try to apply a little more than x force, but less than y force, and see how that works." This is a substantial oversimplification of course (there are many more factors involved than how fast the ball is growing in the visual field), but I think the point is clear enough. I doubt there's any trigonometry happening in the brain's circuitry; it seems much more plausible to me that the brain is really good at remembering how it felt in previous circumstances, recognizing how those remembered circumstances relate to the current one, and trying to adjust. As I understand it, this is actually a significant debate in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and related fields. One prominent proponent of a view like the one I've expressed here, that the brain doesn't require or use heavy math to do things like catch flying objects but rather acquires the ability over time through experience, is John Searle. He is known for using the example of his dog's ability to catch a ball that's bounced off a wall when discussing and arguing against theories of mind that propose that all unconscious processes must be following algorithms or rules (like running through computations to figure out how to catch a ball). Here's a quote of his from the BBC program Horizons (quote found in "New Technologies in Language Learning and Teaching", issue 532, on page 37 [1]): If my dog can catch a ball that's bounced off the wall, that may be just a skill he's acquired. The alternative view (the pro-AI view) would say: "Look, if the dog can catch the ball it can only be because he knows the rule: go to the point where the angle of incidence equals equals the angle of reflection in a plane where the flatness of the trajectory is a function of the impact velocity divided by the coefficient of friction" - or something like that. Now, it seems to me unreasonable to think that my dog really *knows* that. It seems to me more reasonable to suppose he just learns how to look for where the ball is going and jumps *there*. And a lot of our behavior is like that as well. We've acquired a lot of skills, but we don't have to suppose that, in order to acquire these skills, the skills have got to be based on our mastery of some complex intellectual structure. For an awful lot of things, we just *do* it. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=fWQhj0HVCbUC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=john+searle+dog+catches+ball&source=bl&ots=7M1GnrUP5a&sig=7fNe54CBmwhR2hvnXb-t4f3HWpU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQrJ-w1PLUAhXJHD4KHbhaAHwQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=john%20searle%20if%20my%20dog%20can%20catch%20a%20ball&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=fWQhj0HVCbUC&pg=PA37&lpg=P...

by klik99 9y ago

klik99 9y ago

But otherwise a good article... I realize this is getting hung up on the clickbaity title...

ptr_void 9y ago

> someone is able to calculate the trajectory The result is the similar if one was to calculate such trajectories, but I am not sure what happens in the mind can be called calculation. How can it be properly tested that brain indeed calculates trajectories when catching a ball? Would practicing catching ball improve their relevant mathematical abilities demonstrable on paper?

travmatt 9y ago
What if the brain operated more like a neural network than a calculator? Your second point seems to raise another, separate issue, whether or not knowledge gained can be applied in an unrelated context, or even if these two calculations would be performed in the same ways by the brain, such that training in one yields greater efficiency in the other. I'd wager that practicing hand eye coordination would yield greater efficiency in other task related to processing visual input, maybe video games.

kenbellows 9y ago

I don't agree with that description of what the brain does when you catch a ball, or with the principle it's proposing. I don't think the brain does any kind of calculations to figure out how to catch the ball; I think it's effectively muscle memory. If you've never caught anything before, your brain will have no clue what to do. As you practice running to catch things, I think a better description of your subconscious process is something like: "The ball (or whatever) looks like it's growing bigger in my visual field at a certain rate. A previous time when it grew bigger at a rate kind of like that, I applied about x force in the legs, and I didn't get there in time. Another time when it was growing at about this rate, I put applied a larger amount of force y, and the ball landed behind me. This time I'll try to apply a little more than x force, but less than y force, and see how that works." This is a substantial oversimplification of course (there are many more factors involved than how fast the ball is growing in the visual field), but I think the point is clear enough. I doubt there's any trigonometry happening in the brain's circuitry; it seems much more plausible to me that the brain is really good at remembering how it felt in previous circumstances, recognizing how those remembered circumstances relate to the current one, and trying to adjust. As I understand it, this is actually a significant debate in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and related fields. One prominent proponent of a view like the one I've expressed here, that the brain doesn't require or use heavy math to do things like catch flying objects but rather acquires the ability over time through experience, is John Searle. He is known for using the example of his dog's ability to catch a ball that's bounced off a wall when discussing and arguing against theories of mind that propose that all unconscious processes must be following algorithms or rules (like running through computations to figure out how to catch a ball). Here's a quote of his from the BBC program Horizons (quote found in "New Technologies in Language Learning and Teaching", issue 532, on page 37 [1]): If my dog can catch a ball that's bounced off the wall, that may be just a skill he's acquired. The alternative view (the pro-AI view) would say: "Look, if the dog can catch the ball it can only be because he knows the rule: go to the point where the angle of incidence equals equals the angle of reflection in a plane where the flatness of the trajectory is a function of the impact velocity divided by the coefficient of friction" - or something like that. Now, it seems to me unreasonable to think that my dog really *knows* that. It seems to me more reasonable to suppose he just learns how to look for where the ball is going and jumps *there*. And a lot of our behavior is like that as well. We've acquired a lot of skills, but we don't have to suppose that, in order to acquire these skills, the skills have got to be based on our mastery of some complex intellectual structure. For an awful lot of things, we just *do* it. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=fWQhj0HVCbUC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=john+searle+dog+catches+ball&source=bl&ots=7M1GnrUP5a&sig=7fNe54CBmwhR2hvnXb-t4f3HWpU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQrJ-w1PLUAhXJHD4KHbhaAHwQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=john%20searle%20if%20my%20dog%20can%20catch%20a%20ball&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=fWQhj0HVCbUC&pg=PA37&lpg=P...