In Where Mathematics Comes From (which I’ve just begun to read, and am finding thoroughly fascinating), the authors speak of “innate arithmetic”–simple mathematical operations that evidence suggests are known (or, well, performable, if not “known” per se) by babies (at least 3- or 4-day-old babies), such as adding 1 + 1 and subtracting 2 - 1.
Are there other things that have been shown to be innate knowledge for humans? I’ve found through googling that “innate knowledge” may not be the best term to use; apparently it’s often used as equivalent to innate idea, which isn’t quite what I mean. Is there a better term?
One of my undergraduate advisors is now involved with the Center for Evolutionary Psychology. They have a long list of studies on just that sort of thing. I think the term they use is cognitive adaptations. They hypothesize that things like incest avoidance, and notions of what constitutes “cheating” in social situations has an evolutionary basis. Interesting stuff. You can find a lot of it on their website.
I’ve read that our brains seem to be hard wired with sort of a number system, but it’s a pretty basic system. We recognize none, one, two, a few, or a whole bunch. A baby will know one and one makes two, but two and two is off in some fuzzy area that’s more than two but less than a whole bunch.
Human beings innately recognize the form of a face. There are also innate primitive visual sensations, like vertical lines, horizontal lines, a starburst (rays coming from a point), and tactile sensations, like round, corner, sharp, and prickly.
Some people (and apparently all babies) have what is called Synaesthesia, which is imperfect boundaries between these primitives, so that when they experience certain primitives, they will have an accompanying unrelated sensation. For example, when seeing a strong blue field, they might hear a high pitched sound.
Note that the article suggests that words for numbers must somehow precede the capacity for arithmetic, and that’s certainly how the story was put in much of the mainstream press (since support for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is always interesting). However, that’s something that’s extremely questionable - another obvious interpretation is that folks with no interest or need for a number system don’t go on to develop words for nonexistent concepts like “seven”.
Still amazing that a group of people wouldn’t understand basic arithmetic.
Does the lack of a number imply the lack of a concept? Ancient Greeks argued philosophically about whether zero was a legitimate concept in the numerical/mathematical sense. This does not imply that they couldn’t tell if there were no apples in a pile of fruit.
Just to clarify, innate knowledge qua knowledge does not exist. However, as has been pointed out, numerous brain functions are innnate, just like bodily functions.