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I expect kids can figure out these logical structures from non-verbal input if given the chance (e.g. if you present little puzzles with buttons that must be pr
by jacobolus 8y ago
I expect kids can figure out these logical structures from non-verbal input if given the chance (e.g. if you present little puzzles with buttons that must be pressed in logically connected ways or whatever). I have seen tiny kids figure out several-step solutions to physical problems, sometimes quite novel ones that I would not have imagined myself. Simple logic puzzles are no harder than these, albeit usually presented in a less accessible way.
My bias is toward rejecting any claim that particular logic is innate. But I also don’t think that language per se is strictly necessary to reason logically.
However, it is certainly true that most situations requiring complicated logic encountered by young children are social / verbal. In which case additional feedback and guidance from adults (not to mention imitation) is probably going to be a faster teacher than pure trial and error / observation.
- red75prime 8y ago> I also don’t think that language per se is strictly necessary to reason logically. On a very basic level, probably. But how can you reason about, say, addition and at the same time do not assign some singular representation to a large set of operations you can do when performing addition? And such representations are what language is all about, isn't it? Or, for that matter, how can you perform addition without a language?
- jacobolus 8y agoSome people’s primary representation of numbers is visual and concrete, like configurations of abacus beads or the like. I guess you can decide whether you consider a direct representation like that to be “language”.
- red75prime 8y agoEr, they communicate numbers thru language though. Whether someone can come up with the idea of abacus without a language for numbers is an open question, I think.