anumeric, bee numeric
Today’s date. The current time. Numbers pop up in my day-to-day without even so much as a second thought, and I find myself frankly alarmed at the sheer number of numbers I encounter. Waking up in the morning to turn off my alarm and read the time is only the beginning of a steady current of numbers coming in throughout the day.
We are in some sense bombarded by numbers. It’s really difficult to not be aware of a number that pops up.
But maybe I take this and the immediate parsing of its representation as a time or a price, for granted. It feels like we’ve worked out a way for numbers to have a context so that they’re easily recognizable for what they are.
It seems so much of everything is constructed around numbers- we rely on them, manipulate them, chase after them. Would life be more peaceful without numbers? No harsh reminders of the exact amount of unopened emails, unsent drafts, that nagging number of system updates on an app. Maybe I secretly dream of an anumeric life. To not be tied down to the precision of quantities of anything, and instead live amorphously.
Last year, in my cognitive neuroscience class, we learned about the development of human numeric systems. iI’s not unique to humans at all—even bees can do basic arithmetic [1]. Bees!
Maybe it’s something they have to learn how to do. And practice.
Of course, the fun part of it is that I get to live in this fantasy that this is how bees pick up their advanced counting skills. It’s the bees’ little secret.
If numeracy has evolutionary evolved to be found in other species, maybe it’s for an extremely good reason. Maybe a world where numbers aren’t used at all would be abnormal and totally uncomfortable, and the numbers that I feel bombard me are the backbone of my day.
Numbers are a strange commonality between us and the bees- one that we’ll never get to discuss with them. I wonder if they have an appreciation for numbers and arithmetic yet also long for a reprieve from structure.
But, it is nice to have the reminder that we’re not that special, because numbers are something we get to share with other species.
“We’ll still want to be, with the butterflies and bees, making up new numbers, living so merrily”. [2]
Giurfa, Martin, Claire Marcout, Peter Hilpert, Catherine Thevenot, and Rosa Rugani. “An Insect Brain Organizes Numbers on a Left-to-Right Mental Number Line.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 44 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2203584119.
Ashley Eriksson. "Island Song (Come Along with Me)." Recorded 2018. YouTube video, 3:18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxRqEjmfxM
