5 ms·
I think you can argue that the idea of finite sets is prior to numbers, though the machinery of set theory is obviously much newer. When you count a field of s
by QuesnayJr 7y ago
I think you can argue that the idea of finite sets is prior to numbers, though the machinery of set theory is obviously much newer. When you count a field of sheep, you need some idea of the set if sheep you are counting.
- carapace 7y agoIt was a kind of Peano arithmetic with pebbles: you kept a sack or pile of pebbles and moved them to another sack or pile one-by-one as your sheep went by one-by-one (Ye Olde Pigeon Hole Principle) and that way you knew you had all of your sheep. Two major innovations after that were the idea that you could e.g. add two piles of pebbles to "calculate" the size of combining two flocks of sheep into a larger flock, and so on, and the idea of naming the pebbles (perhaps from a "counting" song) and then letting the names themselves substitute for the actual pebbles. So, yes, idea of finite sets is prior to numbers, but numbers were formalized before the idea of sets was formalized, IMO, FWIW.