We're just systems that transport our genes into the next generation. Our perception exists mostly to help us find food, avoid dangers and reproduce. Of course we lose a lot of information, because it is irrelevant to us.
I use my perception to do much more, most of the time. All evidence points to humans being a good few steps above other animals for whom those three activities are not only necessary but almost sufficient.
Humans might be above animals, but I suspect not by much. Who's to say what minor event in evolution prevents dolphins or AI in becoming sentient.
Fortunately, evolution selected for intellect even though it might have initially have been past a minimum fitness/energy valley. Id encourage you to rethink this simplistic view that ignores the general tool that developed in order to handle more random and abstract specific solutions to threats.
There is no proof that smarter brain is what was targeted by evolution. It could be that the size of human brain was either purely accidental consequence of other factor or at least was driven by the needs like balancing when walking/running on 2 legs.
A simple reality check:
Considering the large energy needs of the brain, there is an evolutionary pressure to make it smaller... so something pushed it the other way.
Some questions: We act like stimuli are exact things but the brain is all about abstraction. In fact, a certain amount of entropy/information enters your beain every day from vision, smell, touch, etc. Its not stored in full fidelity. There arent enough nuerons or energy for that. So what is lost? Well...whatever isnt abstractable, right? You celebrate your birthday. You remember blowing out the cake in pristine visi…
> So what is lost? Well...whatever isnt abstractable, right? Raises a most curious question.. what ever isnt abstractable?
> what ever isnt abstractable?
If you are interested in this kind of question, read up on Kolmogorov complexity:
Would anyone here be able to offer some book suggestions for tackling AI from the neuroscience/ biological perspective, as opposed to the computer science/ computational perspective? I want to expand my horizons.
I would suggest "Principles of Neural Design", a book that tries to explain why things might be engineered the way they are in biology:
There is no proof that smarter brain is what was targeted by evolution. It could be that the size of human brain was either purely accidental consequence of other factor or at least was driven by the needs like balancing when walking/running on 2 legs.
A simple reality check: Considering the large energy needs of the brain, there is an evolutionary pressure to make it smaller... so something pushed it the other way.
Compared with apes humans much more efficient at digesting of starch. However to get enough protein and micronutrients from starchy root vegetables one has to consume much more in calories compared with vegetables. That effectively provided "free" energy to keep bigger brain. Of cause this is rather speculative, but it just emphasises that we really do not now why humans develop bigger brain.
A simple reality check: Considering the large energy needs of the brain, there is an evolutionary pressure to make it smaller... so something pushed it the other way.
Compared with apes humans much more efficient at digesting of starch. However to get enough protein and micronutrients from starchy root vegetables one has to consume much more in calories compared with vegetables. That effectively provided "free" energy to keep bigger brain. Of cause this is rather speculative, but it just emphasises that we really do not now why humans develop bigger brain.
There's another point: big heads (whether they contain a big brain or not) are selected against, as they make birth a much more dangerous business that it would be otherwise.
Some questions: We act like stimuli are exact things but the brain is all about abstraction. In fact, a certain amount of entropy/information enters your beain every day from vision, smell, touch, etc. Its not stored in full fidelity. There arent enough nuerons or energy for that. So what is lost? Well...whatever isnt abstractable, right? You celebrate your birthday. You remember blowing out the cake in pristine visi…
Lossy compression combined with abstraction mechanism might be more a more appropriate way to describe it. What gets processed and enters consciousness only a small percentage of the actual raw input from sensory "devices". What get's stored is even less than that, is highly inaccurate and degrades quickly. Abstraction comes in at finding patterns in the lossy data, and filling in the gaps in the data to form a coher…
My take is some kind of deduplication. Similar input gets overlayed, while novel inputs gets a new "slot". Thus we remember more about our childhoods because they are filled with novel experiences, while as we grow older time seems to fly because one day merge with all the others.
We're just systems that transport our genes into the next generation. Our perception exists mostly to help us find food, avoid dangers and reproduce. Of course we lose a lot of information, because it is irrelevant to us.
Fortunately, evolution selected for intellect even though it might have initially have been past a minimum fitness/energy valley. Id encourage you to rethink this simplistic view that ignores the general tool that developed in order to handle more random and abstract specific solutions to threats.
Evolution do not "target" jack all. If gene A survive over gene B it simply means that A is a better fit for the present local conditions.
Some questions: We act like stimuli are exact things but the brain is all about abstraction. In fact, a certain amount of entropy/information enters your beain every day from vision, smell, touch, etc. Its not stored in full fidelity. There arent enough nuerons or energy for that. So what is lost? Well...whatever isnt abstractable, right? You celebrate your birthday. You remember blowing out the cake in pristine visi…
I don't know about it being a quantum system, but from a psychological standpoint our memories are definitely shaped by the way we perceive and process an event. There was an article posted on HN recently about why we don't remember being babies - some think that language is required for forming memories. The way a shared memory is remembered and re-told by other people (i.e. parents) can also affect our own memory o…
If language is required for forming memories, surely babies that have learned sign-language would remember something, no?