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Humans learn numbers from multisets, not mathematical sets, study suggests

By PulseAugur Editorial · [1 sources] ·

This LessWrong post argues that humans likely learn numbers from the cardinality of multisets, not standard sets. While merging collections of objects mirrors addition, the distinctness requirement of sets breaks this analogy, as seen with the atoms in a water molecule. The author posits that using multisets as a foundation for mathematics could be more intuitive and computationally efficient for the brain, leveraging its innate understanding of collections. AI

IMPACT Suggests a cognitive framing for AI that could influence future AI architecture and learning paradigms.

RANK_REASON This is an opinion piece discussing the cognitive basis of mathematical understanding, not a research paper or model release.

Read on LessWrong (AI tag) →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

Humans learn numbers from multisets, not mathematical sets, study suggests

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This is an opinion piece discussing the cognitive basis of mathematical understanding, not a research paper or model release.
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  1. LessWrong (AI tag) TIER_1 English(EN) · azergante ·

    We don't learn numbers from set cardinality

    <p>As pointed out in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From">Where Mathematics Comes From</a> (WMCF), we are born with an innate sense for numbers, which gets fuzzier very fast as the numbers grow bigger. We can also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/…

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