One thing to point out that even if the "module" that does arithmetic is slow, the brain understands the context of that calculation.
2 + 2 can be viewed as a computation that happens in nature and our brain all the time.
But the real magic doesn't lie in the pure computation. Our brain understands what that 2 means in the context of all the knowledge of the entire Universe. 2 cows, 2 sheeps, 2 planets ?
Understanding context is what we are really good at, as said in the article "prior" knowledge. So its not surprising that a cheap calculator can outsmart me in computation when it doesn't actually compute the context of its computation, which is sort if cheating.
I was trying to stay away from "meaning" since it gets messy, but if you just compare the energy used by sub-conscious human arithmetic with that expended by a simple cpu then the cpu is massively more efficient. We find mathematics far more mentally taxing than visual observation purely because we are so bad at mathematics, not because visual processing is easy.
2 + 2 can be viewed as a computation that happens in nature and our brain all the time.
But the real magic doesn't lie in the pure computation. Our brain understands what that 2 means in the context of all the knowledge of the entire Universe. 2 cows, 2 sheeps, 2 planets ?
Understanding context is what we are really good at, as said in the article "prior" knowledge. So its not surprising that a cheap calculator can outsmart me in computation when it doesn't actually compute the context of its computation, which is sort if cheating.