What if Elephants did Math?

By Craig Dwyer Reflection on Philosophical Problems of Mathematics in the Light of Evolutionary Epistemology by YEHUDA RAV

The way we think, our cognitive apparatus, is the result of millions of years of human evolution. These apparatus were chosen by natural selection because they provided a world picture that must have been appropriate for dealing with world in which we were grounded. Otherwise, survival would not have been possible. Humans are bipedal animals. We have eyes set in the front of the head giving us 3D vision. Our hands have four fingers and a supporting thumb. Our brain takes up close to 20% of the energy our bodies produce. I could go on. This physical set-up, which is at the genetic level, evolved from countless other potential possibilities. It has given us a perspective and way of viewing the world which is fundamentally different from other animals. An Elephant for instance, with its four legs, eyes on opposite sides of its head, inflexible body, and extremely sensitive trunk, would experience the world much differently than we do. If Elephants did mathematics, it would certainly look and feel different. This thought goes against the Platonic worldview that mathematics in out there waiting to be discovered. Rather, it suggests that mathematics is an embodied experience, resulting from our physical apparatus, and shaped by our sense of perception of the world around us. Our coordination system and the way in which we move to survive and live (when you fall, your hands automatically shoot forward to soften the impact to your head, thus preserving the body part that is vital, the brain, for one that is expendable, the hands and arms), are at the root of our logical thinking. Along with our physical apparatus, humankind has evolved a sense of cultural thinking as well. By banding together and living in complex groups (a survival mechanism) we have developed a continuous process of growth in terms of social and cultural needs. Mathematics can be viewed in the same two-tiered web. The logico-operational level is based on adaptive cognitive mechanisms. These schema are fixed by our physical reality, or how we experience the world (they are fixed on our sense of nowness, as evolution works on a timescale that humans are unable to experience, even though we may indeed be evolving physically, there is no way to determine where those adaptations will lead, as evolution is opportunistic). The thematic level is determined by our diverse cultures and social needs. This level is dynamic, changing, and continually

evolving. These two levels can inform an age old question presented by Socrates; How to explain that, as often happens, mathematicians living far apart from each other and having no contact, independently discover the same truth? I never heard of two poets writing the same poem. They discover the same truth (I use this word loosely) because they are both human, and they exist in the same bodies that have the same physical perception of the world. They share the logico-operational level of human mathematics. At the same time that they discovered the same truth working in different axiomatic languages and systems of math. These systems would be informed by the thematic web of mathematics, or their embodied culture. A Thought Experiment What if Elephants did math? What would their logico-operational level entail? What would their thematic level entail? How would these two levels coexist to bring forth a mathematics that is completely embodied in their experience of being an Elephant?