DANCEST 303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Neocortex, Cultural Movement, Grey Matter
Document Summary
Preliterate civilization civilization before writing was invented. No scientific thinking without writing, writing is a precondition for scientific thinking. Animism explanation of workings of the world and universe by means of spirits with human-like characteristics (edward burnett taylor 1832-1917) Protowriting use of symbols to represent entities without linguistic information linking them. First form of writing discovered 3000 bc in region of current iraq. Signs to represent sounds of spoken language. Sign representing spoken word, no longer physical resemblance to word"s meaning. Subitising distinguish between one, two and three entities. Numbers one to ten already existed before original language split into many branches around. Tallies (lines) were grouped when 5 digits where reached: base number 5. Then base number 10 (because of 10 fingers) 600 bce: greeks developed written system for numbers 1-24 based on alphabet. Place coding system in india, arabs changed order of digits, result is our practice of calling them.
