The Origins of Geometric Symbols since Prehistory: A Language of Thought?
Abstract
In the Lascaux cave, just below the magnificent drawing of a large deer, is the simple but unmistakable outline of a rectangle. All over the world, since prehistoric times, the human species has been producing symbols, drawings, motifs and diagrams in regular geometric shapes (parallel lines, circles, squares, etc.). In this first lecture, we examine how far back this propensity for geometric symbols goes into prehistory. Is it possible to attribute a meaning to them ? At the very least, can we understand their syntax, the logic of their organization in space ? From signs on decorated caves to stones cut into bifaces and spheroids, and from André Leroi-Gourhan to Georges and Suzanne Sauvet, there's no shortage of prehistoric data. They underline the extraordinary antiquity of the geometric sense in the homo genus, and not only in homo Sapiens. They also suggest that, while the meaning of these signs escapes us, their syntax can be analyzed in its most elementary dimensions (lines, circles, parallelism, right angles, repetition with or without variation, concatenation, etc.). Prehistoric research in this area shows a remarkable convergence with my own research in cognitive science. I hypothesize that all members of the human species are endowed with a geometric language of thought, based on elementary concepts (point, line, curve) and recombining them through operations of repetition with variation, concatenation and recursive embedding.
