[ExI] Meaningless Symbols.

Gordon Swobe gts_2000 at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 16 00:28:49 UTC 2010


Stefano,

If you watch a small child solve a math problem on his fingers then you will watch a fellow human use a simple calculator to facilitate and extend his mathematical understanding. The understanding of the numbers takes place in his mind, not in his fingers.

A few years later his parents will buy him a pocket calculator. If the child thinks clearly then he will understand how his new battery-powered gizmo works in the same way his fingers once did: as a tool for facilitating and extending his own mathematical understanding.

If the child cannot think clearly then he may find himself believing that something inside his calculator has a mental life capable of understanding mathematics. Presumably that conscious entity lives in the microchip. It goes away when the batteries die, but comes back if the boy plugs in the AC adapter. That little mind inside the microchip doesn't have much personality, but boy it sure is a whiz at doing math.

-gts


      



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