Quick: whats 4 + 5?
Slightly less quick: whats five plus four?
Still nine, right?
Okay, lets wait a few seconds.
Feel free to have a quick stretch.
Now, without looking, what was the answer to the first question?
Its still nine, isnt it?
Youve just performed a series of advanced brain functions.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
Lets do the math
Your brain probably isnt wired for numbers.
Its great at math, but numbers are a relatively new concept for humans.
Prehistoric humans still had things to count.
They didnt randomly forget how many children they had just because there wasnt a bespoke language for numerals yet.
This is significant because we really dont know how the brain handles math.
Math happens at the individual neuron level inside the human brain.
EKG readings and CAT scans can only provide a general picture of all the noise our neurons produce.
Per the research paper:
We found abstract and notation-independent codes for addition and subtraction in neuronal populations.
They also discovered that different parts of the brain approach these tasks with different timing.
And each of those is transient based on what kind of arithmetic were performing.
The art of math
Think about an apple.
No, not that one.
Think about a green apple.
How many calculations did it take for you to arrive at a specific apple density and relative size?
Did you have to adjust the input variables to produce an apple that wasnt red?
Im going to go out on a limb and say you didnt.
You just thought about some apples and they happened inside your head.
You hallucinated those apples.
Artificial intelligencesystems designed to produce original content based on learned styles go throughthe exact same process.
These AI systems arent using advanced math features to psychologically exploit the human propensity for art or imagery.
Thats kind of how your brain does math.
At least according to this new research, anyway.
It uses rules to surface the answer that makes the most sense.
Can you guess how many candies are in the jar below?
What does it all mean?
That remains to be seen.
But it could take years of further research to understand the ramifications of these findings.
First and foremost, we have to ask: is the human brain a quantum computer?
Thats obviously a very tiny drop from a giant bucket of data.
The hope is that continued research will lead to a greater understanding of math processes in the brain.
Yet, there could be potential implications on a much grander scale.
Either that, or its poorly-designed.
The answer may lie in the quantum nature of the universe.
Thats calledquantum time travel.
