Re: ANE cosmology; was : A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

I stand by my point that one, two, many cannot be the basis for
arithmetic. That language evolves or changes otherwise is not germane.
The aborigines I noted will borrow their numerals from Portuguese, now
that they have been exposed. Those in use in the West go back to remote
antiquity, since all the smaller ones are homologs. But the terms for
"hundred" apparently came later, for there are distinct terms in at least
two groupings. I recognize that sometimes common terms are made to refer
to new notions, like the Greek /hyle/, a term for wood which became the
term for matter as the ultimate substrate. But all the changes under
heaven will not change the fact that one, two, many won't support
arithmetic.

If you want to get technical, number theory can do with less than the
three terms. Peano needed only zero and successor to generate the number
sequence, though he needed the sophistication of mathematical induction.
But I can guarantee that you'll have the devil's own time balancing your
checkbook with "successor of successor of ... successor of zero." But
then number theory is not arithmetic. Also, your take on "one to one"
gets us into some advanced concepts like mapping. I'm not up on the
history of mathematics, but I don't recall mapping till the nineteenth
century with Cantor, and later with Goedel.

Comparing Babylonian measures with Hebrew to deny that the latter
specified a long time is questionable. The text does not match a
Babylonian source in time unless it is later than Moses, for Moses grew
up in Egypt, centuries removed from the Mesopotamian roots. The
Babylonians were the most advanced historians, astronomers and
mathematicians of antiquity, whereas the Hebrews were nomads and slaves.
As far as that goes, we don't have the perceptions of the Babylonian hoi
polloi except perhaps for tax receipts and some contracts. And they don't
speak to long vs LONG.
Dave

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:34:03 -0400 <glennmorton@entouch.net> writes:
>
>
> On Mon Jun 5 17:12 , "D. F. Siemens, Jr." sent:
>
> >>Sorry, Glenn, but this won't work. "More" is not equivalent to 3,
> but
> >covers everything above 2. You can;t add more + 1. We have an echo
> of
> >this in the comparison of adjectives, where you have to have added
> >information to answer, after a declaration that an item is the
> best,
> >"Best among how many?"
>
> Sorry, Dave, but this is exactly how languages evolve. Indeed, it
> may be how
> Chinese began to count. yi er san si wu liu qi ba ji shi then shi
> yi (ten 1) shi
> er (ten two). Of course the 'many' refers to any number above 2, but
> you act as if
> languages are static things. They aren't, except in very small
> populations. But if
> one wishes to generate numbers one can do what Cantor basically did.
> If you recall,
> the word infinity used to mean the largest number, but after Cantor
> discovered that
> some infinities are larger than other infinities, he morphed the
> concept of
> infinity and put adjective numbers in front of the term. This
> infinity is twice
> that infinity.
>
> Now, if you want to claim that a language can't change to
> incorporate new ideas,
> that is fine, do so. I think you would be wrong. When it came time
> to name guys
> and gals who went to space we took two words Astro and naut and put
> them together.
> The Russians did us better and took cosmos and naut(sailor) and put
> them together.
>
> Prior to the 1930s, we didn't have a word for neutrino, or positron
> (positive plus
> electron). So, don't tell me that people can't use their language
> to communicate
> any idea possible. The chinese are doing it all the time.
> Telephone--Dian hua
> (electric speech) were the words chosen. And dian came originally
> from lightning.
> The train, huo che (fire cart), the mobile phone had to be named
> within the past
> few years--it is shou ji (hand machine), computer dian nao (quite
> properly electric
> brain)
>
> But of course, if you insist that the language can't change in order
> to express new
> ideas, then you would be correct, but trivially so.
>
>
>
> >One to one equivalence is not math (or maths).
>
> It is if you are using a short one to to measure a longer one.
>
>
> >Then rowing with one oar to turn the boat makes the oar a rudder? A
> >paddle has to give the single paddler complete control of the
> canoe, but
> >that does not make it a brake, reverse gear, rudder, etc. Recall
> "If I
> >call the tail of a dog a leg, ..."
>
> The story talked about rudders, and yes, the teachers of canoeing
> actually use the
> term, rudder to describe how to use the paddle. You use your hand to
> attach it to
> the boat, the other hand is free to wiggle it. Have you ever been a
> canoeist?
>
>
> >Within the context of antiquity, God did say that the earth is very
> old.
>
> DAvid, sometimes I think you just say things like this to see if you
> can get away
> with it. It is very clear that you actually haven't researched this.
> Compared with
> the antiquity of the Sumerian chronology, the Biblical Chronology
> which you claim
> was long in context, is truly a very short chronology. Here is the
> list of
> Sumerian dynasties written by the Sumerians themselves.
>
> Early Dynastic I
> Ante-diluvian kings, legendary, or earlier than ca. the 26th century
> BC. Their
> rules are measured in sars - periods of 3600 years - the next unit
> up after 60 in
> Sumerian counting (3600 = 60x60), and in ners - units of 600.
>
> "After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in
> Eridug. In Eridug,
> Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years."
>
> Alulim of Eridug: 8 sars (28800 years)
> Alalgar of Eridug: 10 sars (36000 years)
> En-Men-Lu-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 12 sars (43200 years)
> En-Men-Ana 1, 2
> En-Men-Gal-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 8 sars (28800 years)
> Dumuzi of Bad-Tibira, the shepherd: 10 sars (36000 years)
> En-Sipad-Zid-Ana of Larag: 8 sars (28800 years)
> En-Men-Dur-Ana of Zimbir: 5 sars and 5 ners (21000 years)
> Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppag: 5 sars and 1 ner (18600 years)
> Zin-Suddu 1
>
> Then the first dynasty lists a bunch of kings who had the misfortune
> of ruling for
> only 1000 years or so each. The total time is 22,000 years.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_king_list#The_list
>
> I have the scholarly article in my garage on this so this just isn't
> something off
> the internet.
>
> Total time in just these two SUMERIAN dynasties is something over
> 250,000 years!!!!
>
> Don'y you think now, in context that a piddling 6000 years is not a
> long chronology
> given the context of the Middle East? Will you acknowledge that
> your statement
> above is false?
>
>
> >Much later the term for the largest number in Greece was "muriad"
> or
> >myriad. I would say that usually is simply conveyed the notion that
> the
> >number was too big to count. It took the genius of Archimedes to
> talk
> >about myriads of myriads with specific numerical reference.
> Additionally,
> >how is "out of the mud came life" "more true" than "Let the earth
> bring
> >forth grass, ..." With the former you'd object that it was either
> next to
> >a vent or in a warm pool.
>
>
> YOu have just illustrated the point I made above. If you insist
> that language
> can't change then of course it can't express any new concepts--like
> numbers, but
> myriads of myriads is not much different than my suggestion of how I
> would take a
> language with only one, two and many and convert it to a counting
> language. I
> would use a base 4
>
> one, two many, onemany, twomany, two-one-many.... That would work
> and is what that
> Genius of Archimedes basically did and it is what the Chinese appear
> to have done,
> but for some reason you deny that it would work.
>
>
>
> >
> >> Let me reverse the question. How WRONG does God have to be before
>
> >> you quit giving
> >> him A+'s for his ability to communicate theological truth?
>
> You ignored this question of mine. I find questions like this are
> ignored by the
> Old earthers like questions about Supernova 1987A are ignored by
> YECs.
>
> Please answer this question above. Intellectual honesty should
> drive one to try to
> find an answer and you have plenty of intellectual honesty.
>
>
> >> So, please tell me what experiment you have carried out to answer
>
> >> the question of
> >> God's control of the universe? When did that issue become
> >> scientific rather than
> >> mere belief? If it is a matter of science, then God should have
> >> corrected, if not,
> >> then you have produced a shiny bright red herring.
> >>
> >Don't you remember that I'm a philosopher?
>
> I remember that you are a philosopher, but you made a scientific
> claim that seems
> to be unsupported by observational data. When people make scientific
> claims that
> seem unsupported, I ask for their data. Do philosophers make a habit
> of making
> unsubstantiated scientific claims and then duck out of the
> responsibility by
> claiming merely to be a philosopher?
>
> And I am curious are you going to answer the philosophical question
> of how wrong
> must God be in order for him not to get that A+ for communication
> ability that you
> seem to give him?
>
> ONe of the things I note in all these threads is that when I put an
> atheist hat on
> and argue the atheist case here, the defenses and logic seem awfully
> weak to me.
> That is another reason to try having the Bible teach something real
> about nature.
> When I argue with atheists, I can back them into a corner over the
> issue of
> existence and the anthropic principle. But the argumentation and
> logic here is not
> sufficient to that task.
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Jun 6 14:38:21 2006