On his book Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures
Cover Interview of June 20, 2017
Lastly
I hope the book gives readers a better appreciation of how
so many central aspects of their own lives are dependent on the invention of
the cognitive tools we call numbers. The story of numbers is also illustrative
a larger theme: what makes humans so special is not simply our innately given
intelligence, but the cognitive tools we acquire from each other—often across
generations—and then subsequently refine.
An interrelated pragmatic goal of the book is to bring
heightened awareness to the crucial role that anthropological linguistics can
play in elucidating the human narrative, helping us to better understand how we
got where we are now as a species. Anthropological linguistics sits at the
nexus of the study of language, human cognition, and culture, and relies on
findings from other diverse fields like neuroscience and archaeology. The
claims in the book are based on findings from all these diverse fields, but rest
most heavily on the study of diverse languages around the world.
I also hope that the book gives readers a better sense of
the insights diverse cultures can give us, even those cultures that do not
wield numerical technologies like ours. There is a temptation to exoticize
small groups of indigenes, and to see their reduced reliance on numbers as less
natural or, simply, weird. In fact, they represent more faithfully the bulk of
our species’ history, since most numerical technologies are a relatively recent
innovation. They offer an important window through which we can look and
discover more about ourselves.
Finally, I hope one of the consequences of the book is that
readers will reflect on the fact that so many of the “essential” numerical
features of their lives, from time-telling to the measurement of their net
worth, are not shared by all people.
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
Lastly
I hope the book gives readers a better appreciation of how so many central aspects of their own lives are dependent on the invention of the cognitive tools we call numbers. The story of numbers is also illustrative a larger theme: what makes humans so special is not simply our innately given intelligence, but the cognitive tools we acquire from each other—often across generations—and then subsequently refine.
An interrelated pragmatic goal of the book is to bring heightened awareness to the crucial role that anthropological linguistics can play in elucidating the human narrative, helping us to better understand how we got where we are now as a species. Anthropological linguistics sits at the nexus of the study of language, human cognition, and culture, and relies on findings from other diverse fields like neuroscience and archaeology. The claims in the book are based on findings from all these diverse fields, but rest most heavily on the study of diverse languages around the world.
I also hope that the book gives readers a better sense of the insights diverse cultures can give us, even those cultures that do not wield numerical technologies like ours. There is a temptation to exoticize small groups of indigenes, and to see their reduced reliance on numbers as less natural or, simply, weird. In fact, they represent more faithfully the bulk of our species’ history, since most numerical technologies are a relatively recent innovation. They offer an important window through which we can look and discover more about ourselves.
Finally, I hope one of the consequences of the book is that readers will reflect on the fact that so many of the “essential” numerical features of their lives, from time-telling to the measurement of their net worth, are not shared by all people.