Thoughts And Trivia

Child is the father of Man. If we want to understand hows and why of behaviour of early Humans, lets look at what is relevant to an infant.
Understanding Physics by early humans is not surprising - since even a child learns of laws of nature by an intuitive interaction with the world. But I wonder, how and why did humankind learn to understand numbers and then on to mathematics? For numbers do not have that direct a day to day relevance for an infant - except for that acquisitive instinct to possess more of what it likes. But why numbers to mathematics and then application of mathematics to Physics. It does not make evolutionary sense.
Only explanation could be that numbers, mathematics and physics in mathematical language is hard-wired in human mind. BUT WHY?
Will a community isolated from learned mankind arrive at the same mathematics and physics? If we are hard-wired - it should and if we are not then the Human knowledge is only a soft skill passed on and extended from generation to generation.
In Andaman Island there are two tribes (The Jarawaks and ?) in some islands, who have shunned contact with rest of humans - except at a distance. They are known to understand numbers and arithmetic. They are so averse to human contact - that we cannot find if they have knowledge of any rudimentary mathematics or physics. But their mere knowledge of arithmetic supports the hard-wired conjecture.

Posted by Girish Bhatnagar at Sunday, July 13, 2008