“Arithmetic is an underrated world-modeling technology” by dynomight

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

Of all the cognitive tools our ancestors left us, what's best? Society seems to think pretty highly of arithmetic. It's one of the first things we learn as children. So I think it's weird that only a tiny percentage of people seem to know how to actually use arithmetic. Or maybe even understand what arithmetic is for. Why?
I think the problem is the idea that arithmetic is about “calculating”. No! Arithmetic is a world-modeling technology. Arguably, it's the best world-modeling technology: It's simple, it's intuitive, and it applies to everything. It allows you to trespass into scientific domains where you don’t belong. It even has an amazing error-catching mechanism built in.
One hundred years ago, maybe it was important to learn long division. But the point of long division was to enable you to do world-modeling. Computers don’t make arithmetic obsolete. If anything, they do the opposite. Without [...]
---
Outline:
(01:17) Chimps
(06:18) Big blocks
(09:34) More big blocks
The original text contained 5 images which were described by AI.
---
First published:
October 17th, 2024
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/r2LojHBs3kriafZWi/arithmetic-is-an-underrated-world-modeling-technology
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---

Images from the article:

---

---

---

---

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or anothe