Her selfish reasoning is a bit like the intentions of those who sensor information from the public. It seems your hypocrisy knows no bounds. You know who I talking about.

It took a tremendous amount of time to write that response and you can’t even grant the courtesy of a response? I’ll take that as a fold.

Additionally, the mathematical systems (base 5 or base 10 logarithmic systems) developed by every society in history provides evidences that humans are by nature ego centric. Even with Suya, her equation has the expectation of a return on investment (Double in return), which to me seems worse. A truly altruistic being would say 10 – 3 = 10. As

Interesting article but, unfortunately, it has nothing to do with mathematics or the universe or Suya’s conceptualization of mathematics. It has to do with social interpretation of language. What the author does do, is provide evidence that there is no such thing as a valid standardized test (there are substantial cultural disadvantages in standardized testing).

In the case of Suya, the differential concept is “ownership” or “giving”. This concept would make a simple math question on a standardized exam invalid. Many Native Americans don’t understand ownership, so of course they don’t understand giving. Obviously if you asked her, “If there are 10 apples on the table and then you eat 3, how many are left on the table?” She would answer 7. Unless their is a social difference in how she interpret food that has been eaten. That is, she returns it to the earth, but is still there. Even so, she has take the entropy out of the apple. Therefore, she has still taken from the earth.

Also, the famous Mundurucu tribe does have words for numbers larger than 5, they just don’t have more than 5 numeric symbols (base 5 system), and they represent numbers on a logarithmic scale much like scientific numbers (the Latin system does too through repetition of number sequences [i.e. 1=10^0, 10=10^2, 100=10^3, etc.]).

The Mundurucu are one of the few societies in history that didn’t settle on a base 10 system (there are others, the Romans used a base 5 & 10 hybrid system logarithmic system). Saying that the Munduruku don’t have words for numbers larger than five is like saying that Americans don’t have words for numbers larger than ten. The Munduruku had no problem conceptualizing very large numbers (and most interestingly very small numbers, they were arguably one of the first to use continued fractions). Actually, numbers smaller than 1 don’t really exist in the universe. That is a concept that the human mind created, and is why representations of numbers smaller than 1 differ greatly in different societies.

Though the Mundurucu settled on 5 instead of 10 as a number base, it is more interesting that all societies settled on a base 10 or base 5 logarithmic structure. Clearly, all societies use either base 5 or base 10 number systems (Romans used both, but still logarithmic) because we have 10 fingers, 5 on each hand. This implies the opposite of what the author postulated. It shows that when societies develop independently, they still end up with very similar mathematical systems. It implies that our mathematical thinking [and everything else for that matter] is far from autonomous, and is determined by our environment and genetic makeup. We are far less “free willed” than assumed.

Also, the fact that all societies developed a logarithmic way of representing numbers implies that there is something consistent about the mathematics of the universe (it’s not just in our minds), or at the very least, the universe always yields a similar mathematical human interpretation.

Lastly, using numbers to describe humans as non egocentric beings heavily breaks down in the face of the base 5 / base 10 social/psychological bottleneck. Given that we based our entire number systems, which determines much of how we interpret the universe, on how many fingers we have on our hands is an indication that we are extremely ego centric. We view and interpret the world based on the most basic characteristics of ourselves (“I have as many apples as I have fingers”). Me, Me, Me

Pythagoras might disagree, but the Chaldeans would love these people -

Negatives were never meant to stand separately from positives – in numbers or in any other way!

The balance is not in “righting wrongs” or in “taking away” but in the synthesis of the whole.

Lynne – thank you for a wonderful article, and the book suggestion, too!!

We all tread our own paths, looking for the same Peace.