08.05.2025 Rafael Nunez

Abstract: What are numbers and where do they come from? Some scholars believe that they have always existed timeless in an ideal platonic realm; certain mathematicians have pointed to formal definitions and axiomatic systems, others have claimed that they are God-given, and some neuroscientists have claimed that they exist in nature as “natural kinds”. Ultimately, these accounts do not provide answers that can be verified empirically and that are consistent with what we know today about the natural world (which includes the human brain and mind). In the natural sciences, a widely accepted view in cognitive neuroscience, child psychology, and animal cognition posits that in humans (and many nonhuman animals) there is a biologically endowed capacity specific for number and arithmetic. However, data from various sources —humans from non-industrialized cultures, trained nonhuman animals in captivity, and the neuroscience of symbol processing in schooled participants— are at odds with this view. The use of loose and misleading technical terminology in the field of "numerical cognition" has facilitated the elaboration of teleological arguments which underlie the above nativist view. To understand this, a crucial distinction between quantical and numerical cognition is necessary: Biologically evolved preconditions (BEPs) for quantification do exist (quantical cognition), but the emergence of conventionalized exact symbolic quantification and arithmetic (numerical cognition) – absent in nonhuman animals – has materialized via human cultural preoccupations and practices that, supported by language and symbolic reference – are crucial dimensions that lie largely outside natural selection. In this talk I’ll discuss the biological enculturation hypothesis, which attempts to explain the complex passage from quantical to numerical cognition in (some) humans, and to gain insight into the origin and nature of numbers. In the process, I will also discuss some aspects of our European Research Council Synergy QUANTA project — Evolution for Cognitive Tools for Quantification.