Ishtar wrote:Sorry ... channeling?
To figure this out, mathematician Maria del Carmen Jorge y Jorge of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (U.N.A.M) channeled the mind of an Aztec land surveyor. That meant retraining herself to use a different numerical system and combing through the Codex Vergara, one of two remaining books that record Aztec land surveying.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against 'channeling' or 'divining' as per the Pythonian Oracles per se, and do a fair bit myself. But I wouldn't try and support a theory, particularly about the maths used in ancient Aztec land surveying, on this board by saying 'Well, it must be true because I got it by channelling," as you'd all accuse me of being unscientific... wouldn't you?
I'm just asking because if we are going to start accepting channellng as evidence of anything, I've got LOADS to tell you!

All -
Oboy,
I just love waking up on a Saturday morning, and,
On my second mug of tea,
Checking out this forum to
Find yet another lovely chunk
Of cognitive high explosives to play with.
OK.......
Linguistic Notation
Musical Notation
Mathematical Notation
Astronomical Notation
Just for starters.
I played the piano for a number of years
And learned to sight-read music.
I remember the moment when looking at a
Sheet of music turned from a nonsensical scatter
Of meaningless ink
Into
A "bicameral" understanding of the score
Which translated instantaneously into the
Physical activity of my hands & fingers playing the music.
Similarly, in college, learning Attic Greek,
A tonal language,
When it turned from an awkward and external process
Of "translation" into
An immediate and internal fluency.
Are these examples of cognitive techne as real as
Flaked flint spearheads or
Boats
or
The use of hematite?
You bet your nelly, absolutely.
Which gets me back to a post I wrote a while back
Concerning Multiple Independent Invention
Versus
Rapid Inter Cultural Communication.
I think you all know where I'm going with this.
Each of our nervous systems
- Not the brain only, but the entire neurological entity -
Contains the cognitive strata of at least tens of
Thousands of years, if not hundreds.
Like sheet music or Attic Greek,
Most of us can't "read" it.
Only because we haven't tried, whether due to
Laziness, fear of the unknown, or cultural conditioning.
I find the word "channelling" to be a very
Accurate descriptor of, say,
"Reading" Aztec surveying notation,
Because it does bring you, in a literal, bicameral sense,
Exactly into the mind(s) of its creators.
hoka hey
john