this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
780 points (98.5% liked)

Comic Strips

12385 readers
3754 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Source: https://xkcd.com/2839/

Explain XKCD: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2839

Title text: My first words were 'These were my first words; what were yours?'

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MeDuViNoX@sh.itjust.works 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Who learns twelve before one through eleven?

[–] notst@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago

That's my favorite part of this joke.

[–] joemo@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 1 year ago

The first few updates must have been riveting 😂.

[–] Johanno@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is twelve a number or a word?

[–] Grippler@feddit.dk 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is only a distinction when written, when spoken everything is words.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

We have solid reason to believe numbers are a pretty distinct symbolic category. We don't use the same part of the brain we use for speech to process numbers. We use a different distinct part of the brain that is not used for speech and is more related with visual processing. Both, speech and number areas, are activated when we read spelled out numbers, and even homophones pointing to the theory that numerals develop into their own thing inside our brains.

[–] morphballganon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But being able to express those symbols in a sentence requires words

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's more like, they can exist in our head without being words. So they are a distinct thing.

[–] morphballganon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

That's fine. So the kid has a concept of 1-11 but doesn't know the words for them.

[–] Hupf@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

It's in a superposition of states until observed.