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The reason why people can't do that calculation in their heads is because of our reliance on computers and calculators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguMYWW8

by Glide 13y ago

The reason why people can't do that calculation in their heads is because of our reliance on computers and calculators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguMYWW8EAU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguMYWW8EAU In fact you can pull up articles with a quick search about how people can attain pretty good mental math capabilities through training. It's hard work, but it's proof of the adaptability of the human mind. I don't know I already thought the computer was the first "lever" for the mind that we've had. The computer has been pretty game changing for society, has it not?

mikestew 13y ago
I learned multiplication long before computers were commonplace, and when four-banger calculators were still quite expensive. The reason I can't do that calculation in my head (well, I could but it would be faster to grab a pen) is that I don't have enough stable registers. I'd guess maybe two registers that won't get corrupted during the calculation. They're not big registers, either. Regardless, I'm not saying that there isn't a technique that would allow me to improve. I'm saying my inability has nothing to do with ubiquitous electronics.
upquark 13y ago
> The reason why people can't do that calculation in their heads is because of our reliance on computers and calculators. No, we were never well equipped to do such computations, we didn't suddenly get worse at it with the invention of calculators. Consciously aware mental calculation is a very recent thing on an evolutionary time scale. I think even 10-20k years ago no one did any mental calculations beyond the most trivial arithmetic operations. OTOH we have a pretty cool native physics engine in our brains and can solve pretty challenging problems such as predicting trajectories and modeling fluid flow. These skills were much more useful in our evolutionary past than arithmetic or algebra.

by Glide 13y ago

mikestew 13y ago

I learned multiplication long before computers were commonplace, and when four-banger calculators were still quite expensive. The reason I can't do that calculation in my head (well, I could but it would be faster to grab a pen) is that I don't have enough stable registers. I'd guess maybe two registers that won't get corrupted during the calculation. They're not big registers, either. Regardless, I'm not saying that there isn't a technique that would allow me to improve. I'm saying my inability has nothing to do with ubiquitous electronics.

upquark 13y ago

> The reason why people can't do that calculation in their heads is because of our reliance on computers and calculators. No, we were never well equipped to do such computations, we didn't suddenly get worse at it with the invention of calculators. Consciously aware mental calculation is a very recent thing on an evolutionary time scale. I think even 10-20k years ago no one did any mental calculations beyond the most trivial arithmetic operations. OTOH we have a pretty cool native physics engine in our brains and can solve pretty challenging problems such as predicting trajectories and modeling fluid flow. These skills were much more useful in our evolutionary past than arithmetic or algebra.