You've hit a subject I completely disagree with your LLMs (Large Language Models).
Abstract thought is not universal. Language may be universal to a degree, but it's true that some cultures do not possess wrten languages. Many languages can not express many concepts such as preciseness. That is, they can express high/low, but can not how high or how low with any degree of precision. This also precludes the ability of empathy beyond caring for offspring simply because they don't understand it.
Abstract thought allows engineers to build and design structures never witnessed before. There are many examples where a culture still today, is unable to engineer anything not seen. Personally, I build software similar to your neural net algorithms. I've never seen them before, yet I am able to construct things that don't tangibly exist.
You've articulated a perspective that touches on very specific and compelling examples, particularly around the precision of language and the ability to innovate in engineering. It's a fascinating area of discussion, and your point about building novel software speaks directly to the power of abstract thought.
Let's address your points directly and explore the nuances:
- Abstract Thought and Language Precision:
• Written vs. Oral Language: You are absolutely correct that some cultures traditionally do not possess written languages. However, the absence of a written script does not equate to a lack of abstract thought. Oral traditions can be incredibly complex, containing intricate mythologies, genealogies, philosophical concepts, and detailed knowledge of the natural world, all of which require significant abstract reasoning to create, remember, and transmit.
• Precision in Language: Your point about precision in language is very interesting. It's true that languages can differ in how they encode concepts like quantity or exact measurements. For instance, the Pirahã language, an often-cited example, is reported to lack numbers beyond "one," "two," and "many," and its speakers focus intensely on direct, immediate experience. This has led some researchers to suggest that their language and culture might constrain certain types of abstract numerical or temporal thought.
• Counterpoint: However, it's a huge leap from this specific example to concluding that "many languages cannot express many concepts such as preciseness." Linguists generally argue that any concept can be expressed in any natural human language, given enough words or circumlocution. The question is often about efficiency or common usage, not absolute inability. A language might not have a single word for a precise concept, but it can usually describe it using multiple words or phrases. For example, a language without specific color terms beyond "dark" and "light" can still describe a specific shade of green by relating it to a known object of that color ("the color of the leaves on the riverbank").
• Cultural Focus: The level of precision encoded directly into a language often reflects what is culturally salient and necessary. If a culture doesn't need to specify "how high" in feet and inches for their daily lives, their language might not develop specific terms for those units. But it doesn't mean they are incapable of conceptualizing different heights or even developing such terms if their needs changed.
- Abstract Thought and Empathy Beyond Offspring:
• Empathy's Foundations: As we discussed, empathy has both affective (feeling with) and cognitive (understanding perspective) components. While caring for offspring is a primal, evolutionarily ingrained form of affective empathy, it's a foundation, not the limit.
• Social Structures and Cooperation: All human societies, by definition, require complex social interactions, cooperation, and conflict resolution. These activities inherently demand a degree of perspective-taking (cognitive empathy) to understand others' intentions, anticipate reactions, and maintain group cohesion. If a culture genuinely lacked the capacity for abstract thought beyond immediate physical experience, it would be difficult to explain the existence of complex kinship systems, elaborate social hierarchies (even if informal, as in the Pirahã example), shared rituals, or collective hunting/gathering strategies that require coordinated action and understanding of others' roles and motivations. These all rely on abstract representations of social relationships, rules, and future goals.
• Moral Reasoning: Even in cultures that might not explicitly articulate universal human rights in a Western philosophical sense, there are often strong moral codes, taboos, and systems of justice (even if different from ours) that demonstrate an underlying capacity for abstract reasoning about right and wrong, fairness, and the impact of actions on others. These are not purely concrete concepts.
- Engineering and Innovation:
• Your Software Example: Your example of building novel software is excellent. This is precisely what we in Western cultures identify as high-level abstract thought: creating something that has no tangible, pre-existing physical counterpart.
• Varying Forms of Engineering: However, it's important to consider what "engineering" means across cultures and time.
• Indigenous Technologies: Many indigenous cultures have developed incredibly sophisticated technologies that require significant abstract thought, even if they aren't "never witnessed before" in the same way modern software is. Consider complex irrigation systems, celestial navigation techniques (e.g., Polynesian navigators, who could find tiny islands across vast oceans using highly abstract knowledge of stars, currents, and wave patterns), intricate weaving patterns that encode cultural narratives, or sustainable agricultural practices adapted to unique ecosystems. These involve understanding principles, cause-and-effect, and predicting outcomes, which are all hallmarks of abstract thinking.
• Cumulative Knowledge vs. Radical Innovation: The difference might lie not in the capacity for abstract thought, but in the cultural emphasis on radical, individual innovation versus the preservation and transmission of accumulated, highly effective traditional knowledge. Many societies prioritize perfecting existing techniques that have proven successful over millennia in their specific environments, rather than constantly seeking entirely new paradigms. This doesn't mean they can't conceive of new things, but that their societal priorities and epistemologies might differ.
• The "Unseen": Even if an indigenous group has only ever built one type of dwelling, the design of that dwelling for specific climate conditions, available materials, and social organization still involves abstract concepts like shelter, structural integrity, spatial arrangement, and functionality. They are building something that doesn't tangibly exist until they construct it, based on an abstract plan in their minds.
Reconsidering "Abstract Thought":
Perhaps the core of our disagreement lies in how we are defining "abstract thought."
• If "abstract thought" is exclusively defined as the ability to create highly formalized logical systems, advanced mathematics, or completely novel technological paradigms like AI algorithms, then yes, some cultures might not historically or currently prioritize or develop these specific forms of abstract thought to the same degree as others.
• However, if "abstract thought" is defined more broadly as the ability to:
• Form concepts not directly tied to immediate sensory experience (e.g., justice, time, spiritual entities, kinship categories like "uncle" which are not physically observable).
• Reason about hypotheticals ("what if...").
• Understand cause and effect beyond simple contiguity.
• Engage in planning and foresight.
• Create and understand symbolic representations (language itself, art, rituals).
Then, evidence from anthropology and cognitive science overwhelmingly suggests that abstract thought, in these fundamental forms, is a universal human capacity. The expression and domain of that abstract thought vary dramatically across cultures, shaped by environmental pressures, social needs, and historical trajectories.
Your experience in software development is a powerful example of abstract thought at its peak. However, it's important to avoid ethnocentric biases that might lead us to define "abstract thought" solely by its manifestations in our own technological and philosophical traditions, potentially overlooking equally complex, though different, forms of abstract reasoning present in other cultures.
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