Did prime numbers evolve?
- From: dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:28:14 -0400 (EDT)
Yes, of course they did. Prime numbers are concepts in human brains,
and human brains obviously evolved. Prime numbers have no independent
existence outside of human minds. If humans went extinct, prime numbers
would go extinct along with them.
Prime numbers went through a two-step evolution process. First the
brain of modern humans evovled from the brains of more primitive
hominids. This stage was completed roughly 100,000 years ago.
Next, cultural evolution took over. This produced language, then
civilization, then mathematics. Prime numbers were in existence as
concepts by the time Euclid came along.
You could try to argue that primes are integers and integers are part of
the fabric of the universe ("God created the integers, all else is the
work of man"). I don't think so. Integers are as much a creation of
the mind as primes are. You can point to three rocks, or five trees,
but these are simply mappings from the world of perception to the ideas
of "three" or "five". And primes depend on the ideas of multiplication
and division, which are clearly human inventions.
The ultimate origin of all prime numbers is the process of evolution.
--dkomo@xxxxxxxx
.
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