Notes on viewing.

A recent article in Scientific American mentions discusses the idea that concepts are represented in the brain by clumps of neurons.  Other neuroscientists have proposed that each concept is distributed among millions of neurons, or that each concept corresponds to one neuron.  

I have written many posts about the idea that:  

• Each mathematical concept is embodied in some kind of module in the brain.
• This idea is a useful metaphor for understanding how we think about mathematical objects.
• You don't have to know the details of the method of storage for this metaphor to be useful.  
• The metaphor clears up a number of paradoxes and conundrums that have agitated philosophers of math.

The SA article inspired me to write about just how such a module may work in some specific cases.  

Integers

Mathematicians normally thinks of a particular integer, say $42$, as some kind of abstract object, and the decimal representation "42" as a representation of the integer, along with XLII and 2A$_{16}$.  You can visualize the physical process like this: 

• The mathematician has a module Int (clump of neurons or whatever) that represents integers, and a module FT that represents the particular integer $42$. 
• There is some kind of asymmetric three-way connection from FT to Int and a module EO (for "element of" or "IS_A"). 
• That the connection is "asymmetric" means that the three modules play different roles in the connection, meaning something like "$42$ IS_A Integer"
• The connection is a physical connection, not a sentence, and when  FT is alerted ("fired"?), Int and EO are both alerted as well. 
• That means that if someone asks the mathematician, "Is $42$ an integer?", they answer immediately without having to think about it — it is a random access concept like (for many people) knowing that September has 30 days.
• The module for $42$ has many other connections to other modules in the brain, and these connections vary among mathematicians.

The preceding description gives no details about how the modules and interconnections are physically processed.  Neuroscientists probably would have lots of ideas about this (with no doubt considerable variation) and would criticize what I wrote as misrepresenting the physical details in some ways.  But the physical details are their job, not mine.  What I claim is that this way of thinking makes it plausible to view abstract objects and their properties and relationships as physical objects in the brain.  You don't have to know the details any more than you have to know the details of how a rainbow works to see it (but you know that a rainbow is a physical phenomenon).

This way of thinking provides a metaphor for thinking about math objects, a metaphor that is plausibly related to what happens in the real world.

Students

A student may have a rather different representation of $42$ in the brain.  For one thing, their module for $42$ may not distinguish the symbol "42" from the number $42$, which is an abstract object.   As a result they ask questions such as, "Is $42$ composite in hexadecimal?"  This phenomenon reveals a complicated situation. 

• People think they are talking about the same thing when in fact their internal modules for that thing may be very differently connected to other concepts in their brain.
• Mathematicians generally share many more similarities in their modules for $42$ than people in general do.  When they differ, the differences may be of the sort that one of them is a number theorist, so knows more about $42$ (for example, that it is a Catalan number) than another mathematician does.  Or has read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• Mathematicians also share a stance that there are right and wrong beliefs about mathematical objects, and that there is a received method for distinguishing correct from erroneous statements about a particular kind of object. (I am not saying the method always gives an answer!).
• Of course, this stance constitutes a module in the brain. 
• Some philosophers of education believe that this stance is erroneous, that the truth or falsity of statements are merely a matter of social acceptance.
• In fact, the statements in purple are true of nearly all mathematicians.  
• The fact that the truth or falsity of statements is merely a matter of social acceptance is also true, but the word "merely" is misleading.
• The fact is that overwhelming evidence provided by experience shows that the "received method" (proof) for determining the truth of math statements works well and can be depended on. Teachers need to convince their students of this by examples rather that imposing the received method as an authority figure.

Real numbers

A mathematician thinks of a real number as having a decimal representation.

• The representation is an infinitely long list of decimal digits, together with a location for the decimal point. (Ignoring conventions about infinite strings of zeroes.)
• There is a metaphor that you can go along the list from left to right and when you do you get a better approximation of the "value" of the real number. (The "value" is typically thought of in terms of the metaphor of a point on the real line.)
• Mathematicians nevertheless think of the entries in the decimal expansion of a real number as already in existence, even though you may not be able to say what they all are.
• There is no contradiction between the points of view expressed in the last two bullets.
• Students frequently do not believe that the decimal entries are "already there".  As a result they may argue fiercely that $.999\ldots$ cannot possibly be the same number as $1$.  (The Wikipedia article on this topic has to be one of the most thoroughly reworked math articles in the encyclopedia.)

All these facts correspond to modules in mathematicians' and students' brains.  There are modules for real number, metaphor, infinite list, decimal digit, decimal expansion, and so on.  This does not mean that the module has a separate link to each one of the digits in the decimal expansion.  The idea that there is an entry at every one of the infinite number of locations is itself a module, and no one has ever discovered a contradiction resulting from holding that belief.

References

• Brain cells for Grandmother, by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Itzhak Fried and Christof Koch.  Scientific American, February 2013, pages 31ff.

Gyre&Gimble posts on modules

• Mathematical objects are "out there"?
• More about neurons and math
• Rigor and rigor mortis
• A scientific view of mathematics
• Constructivism and Platonism
• Math and modules of the mind
• Prechunking
• Thinking about abstract math
• Abstract objects
• Representations of mathematical objects
• Shared mental objects

Notes on Viewing  

This post uses MathJax. If you see mathematical expressions with dollar signs around them, or badly formatted formulas, try refreshing the screen. Sometimes you have to do it two or three times.