How did Mathematics Evolve From the Fish?
One thesis of evolutionary theory is that marine creatures existed prior to land animals and that from them ultimately humans evolved. Humans most clearly distinguish themselves from the animals through a capacity to symbolize, meaning the invention of the alphabetand numbers.I wanted to touch on certain ideas in a visual haiku, showing how the capacity for symbolization developed, namely as a developement of tools, but without accepting the traditional bifurcation between nature and technology, between body and mind, instead showing how the organ of the hand constitutes the first tool. With this very hand and the symbolization capacityit engendered, humankind developed writing and the typewriter – as extensions of the organ of the hand and of the brain. The hand itself can be seen as in terms of evolution as a furthermorphological development of the fin. Only new additional and more complicated capacities developed, namely the organs as tools, for the actual processing of materials as well as thedevelopment of gestures and signs – in other words immaterial, symbolic communication. The hand advances the work of the fin and with it also advances the degree of the capacity tosymbolize, ultimately leading to Mathematics. So it must have been even before mankind, withour precursors in the chain of existence i.e. the fish, that a seed for the capacity to symbolizewas planted – the highest fruition of which being Mathematics. If evolutionary theory is true,than we must assume that all living beings are capable of processing symbols, at least to asmall degree – a cybernetic model of evolution.
Wie hat sich aus den Fischen die Mathematik entwickelt?
1971
Austria
1 min