7 ms·

I left the house with a somewhat largish amount of children. I've still got a somewhat largish amount of children, so I can't have left any of them behind.

meepmorp 13y ago
I left the house with David, Susan, Steve, Kate, Alice, and George. I still have David, Susan, Steve, Kate, Alice, and George, so I can't have left any behind. I've got issues with a lot of (Dan) Everett's work, but you don't need counting to handle that scenario.
- prof_hobart 13y ago
  You've now got to remember all of the kids' individual names (and hope that you haven't got a somewhat largish amount of John Smiths in your group), rather than remembering "I had 6. I've still got 6". It's also even more of a challenge when the things you've got to remember aren't easily individually identified - a flock of sheep or apples or whatever.
  - pavel_lishin 13y ago
    It's not that hard to remember individuals' names, when there aren't all that many of them in your society to begin with, and you've known them all your life. After all, you remember your parents' names, and your grandparents' names, and probably your uncle and aunts' names. If you went on vacation with them, would you count your family members at the start and end of the plane ride, or would you just look around, and think, "Marina, Richard, Victor and Mila, Irina and Alex - okay, everyone's here!"
    - prof_hobart 13y ago
      Actually I struggle pretty badly with names - I have honestly forgotten my wife's name in the past - so I'd probably still go for counting people even if they were in my own family. But I get your point. What it doesn't address though, is my second point - things that don't have unique names. Remembering how many sheep you took out to the field, how many bowls you tooks with you to eat, how many pieces of wood you need to cut in order to fix up your wall etc. Clearly they have managed to find a way to cope without needing these numbers, but I'm not sure that I buy the idea that they wouldn't regularly come across situations where having numbers would have made their lives simpler.
      - pavel_lishin 13y ago
        That's a good point. I haven't read the original profile in a long time, so I don't remember - do they actually have any farming, animals, etc? If they don't raise animals, then counting them doesn't matter quite so much.
      - teebrz 13y ago
        You may be "thinking backwards". If their language doesn't have this feature, or their society these concepts...it's because they don't really run into these situations to the point that it becomes detrimental. I don't know much about primitive tribes in the amazon, but I don't imagine that their traditional lifestyle involves very large flocks of sheep. My family bred dogs growing up so we always had a good number (~10) running around. When I let them out and in, I don't recall ever counting but rather ticking off names. Even then I don't think it was generally a conscious listing, but rather a scanning and the ability to "feel" that someone was missing. For a very long time (well into adulthood) I had no concept of the proper order of the months. I could recognize month names, and with great difficulty name them all...but not their proper order. I had missed that section in school and it never really came up. When it did it really blew peoples minds for some reason. Eventually, I did come across it enough that I learned it. I know nothing of the tribe in question but I don't think it's that much of a stretch that if they have things like a communal attitude towards property, few pieces of property they consider valuable, small flocks of livestock, etc... the issue may simply never come up.
        prof_hobart 13y ago
        > their language doesn't have this feature, or their society these concepts...it's because they don't really run into these situations to the point that it becomes detrimental. Not necessarily. Just because something is detrimental, it doesn't mean that a society will automatically come up with a solution for it. It took people in the west millenia to come up with (or more accurately to be introduced to) zero - and the entire arabic numeral way of counting. That's not because it wouldn't have been useful before. It's simply that no one had figured out that this is a better way to count than their existing representations. >I don't know much about primitive tribes in the amazon, but I don't imagine that their traditional lifestyle involves very large flocks of sheep. You may well be right - I'm no expert in Amazonian culture, so I don't whether they have flocks/herds/whatever of any particular animal. But that's just one possible example. I struggle to believe that they've not got some situations in their lives where numbers would be an advantage. Like I mentioned - it could be counting animals, counting the number of bits of rotten wood that might need to be replaced in their house, dividing a crop of fruits equally between the tribe, or something entirely different. But the lack of numbers in the language is no proof that there was no call for them.
  - meepmorp 13y ago
    But you're living with a group of people to whom you're likely either related directly or have known your whole life (or their whole life, in the case of kids). You're applying your numerate bias here. I have no idea if that's how the Pirāha handle the situation, but it's certainly plausible. Perhaps their memory for this kind of thing is better than yours because they've relied on it for cases where you'd just keep track of a number.

meepmorp 13y ago

I left the house with David, Susan, Steve, Kate, Alice, and George. I still have David, Susan, Steve, Kate, Alice, and George, so I can't have left any behind. I've got issues with a lot of (Dan) Everett's work, but you don't need counting to handle that scenario.

prof_hobart 13y ago
You've now got to remember all of the kids' individual names (and hope that you haven't got a somewhat largish amount of John Smiths in your group), rather than remembering "I had 6. I've still got 6". It's also even more of a challenge when the things you've got to remember aren't easily individually identified - a flock of sheep or apples or whatever.
- pavel_lishin 13y ago
  It's not that hard to remember individuals' names, when there aren't all that many of them in your society to begin with, and you've known them all your life. After all, you remember your parents' names, and your grandparents' names, and probably your uncle and aunts' names. If you went on vacation with them, would you count your family members at the start and end of the plane ride, or would you just look around, and think, "Marina, Richard, Victor and Mila, Irina and Alex - okay, everyone's here!"
  - prof_hobart 13y ago
    Actually I struggle pretty badly with names - I have honestly forgotten my wife's name in the past - so I'd probably still go for counting people even if they were in my own family. But I get your point. What it doesn't address though, is my second point - things that don't have unique names. Remembering how many sheep you took out to the field, how many bowls you tooks with you to eat, how many pieces of wood you need to cut in order to fix up your wall etc. Clearly they have managed to find a way to cope without needing these numbers, but I'm not sure that I buy the idea that they wouldn't regularly come across situations where having numbers would have made their lives simpler.
    - pavel_lishin 13y ago
      That's a good point. I haven't read the original profile in a long time, so I don't remember - do they actually have any farming, animals, etc? If they don't raise animals, then counting them doesn't matter quite so much.
    - teebrz 13y ago
      You may be "thinking backwards". If their language doesn't have this feature, or their society these concepts...it's because they don't really run into these situations to the point that it becomes detrimental. I don't know much about primitive tribes in the amazon, but I don't imagine that their traditional lifestyle involves very large flocks of sheep. My family bred dogs growing up so we always had a good number (~10) running around. When I let them out and in, I don't recall ever counting but rather ticking off names. Even then I don't think it was generally a conscious listing, but rather a scanning and the ability to "feel" that someone was missing. For a very long time (well into adulthood) I had no concept of the proper order of the months. I could recognize month names, and with great difficulty name them all...but not their proper order. I had missed that section in school and it never really came up. When it did it really blew peoples minds for some reason. Eventually, I did come across it enough that I learned it. I know nothing of the tribe in question but I don't think it's that much of a stretch that if they have things like a communal attitude towards property, few pieces of property they consider valuable, small flocks of livestock, etc... the issue may simply never come up.
      - prof_hobart 13y ago
        > their language doesn't have this feature, or their society these concepts...it's because they don't really run into these situations to the point that it becomes detrimental. Not necessarily. Just because something is detrimental, it doesn't mean that a society will automatically come up with a solution for it. It took people in the west millenia to come up with (or more accurately to be introduced to) zero - and the entire arabic numeral way of counting. That's not because it wouldn't have been useful before. It's simply that no one had figured out that this is a better way to count than their existing representations. >I don't know much about primitive tribes in the amazon, but I don't imagine that their traditional lifestyle involves very large flocks of sheep. You may well be right - I'm no expert in Amazonian culture, so I don't whether they have flocks/herds/whatever of any particular animal. But that's just one possible example. I struggle to believe that they've not got some situations in their lives where numbers would be an advantage. Like I mentioned - it could be counting animals, counting the number of bits of rotten wood that might need to be replaced in their house, dividing a crop of fruits equally between the tribe, or something entirely different. But the lack of numbers in the language is no proof that there was no call for them.
- meepmorp 13y ago
  But you're living with a group of people to whom you're likely either related directly or have known your whole life (or their whole life, in the case of kids). You're applying your numerate bias here. I have no idea if that's how the Pirāha handle the situation, but it's certainly plausible. Perhaps their memory for this kind of thing is better than yours because they've relied on it for cases where you'd just keep track of a number.