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I have no idea what I'm doing

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Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#61

Post by c22 »

mod wrote: post #55
hawleyal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go further. All things behave this way. You were compelled to comment given your current circumstance, your particular makeup of cells and electricity sitting in your chair typing, blah blah blah. The beaver knows it's building a dam insasmuch as anyone else knows what they are doing.

No, not really. GP can reason about what he's doing. He knows that he's commenting on HN. He can come up with a plausible reason why (recreation, perhaps). In a more interesting scenario, say building a dam, GP would cut down logs with the express intention of building a dam to make a pond. The beaver doesn't know what it's doing, literally. It can't tell you why, it doesn't have a greater plan of building a dam, etc…

What possible evidence do you have to support this? Why is it crazy to think that the beaver builds a dam because it wants a place to live? Why wouldn't the beaver choose to cut down logs with the intention of using them to build a dam? After all, this is what we observe the beaver doing. Of course since we cannot inhabit the mind of the beaver we cannot know for certain whether the beaver is a thinking being or a blind automaton, but since we consider ourselves thinking beings and the beaver's brain is not wholly unlike our own, why don't we give the beaver some benefit of the doubt? Most of us extend this courtesy to other humans...

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#62

Post by Mobiu5 »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #60
mod wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. GP can reason about what he's doing. He knows that he's commenting on HN. He can come up with a plausible reason why (recreation, perhaps). In a more interesting scenario, say building a dam, GP would cut down logs with the express intention of building a dam to make a pond. The beaver doesn't know what it's doing, literally. It can't tell you why, it doesn't have a greater plan of building a dam, etc…

>The beaver doesn't know what it's doing, literally. It can't tell you why, That's because beavers don't speak English. > it doesn't have a greater plan of building a dam, etc. Just because you've never seen beavers with little tiny HP calculators poring over pages of drawings and equations does not mean that beavers are mindlessly purposelessly building the dams. You think they just throw stick and through some coin…

"It is deliberate."

Source?

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#63

Post by c22 »

javajosh wrote: post #19
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #15

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it." I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy. Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food.…

>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision . One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but…

> One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway.

The real question is if the beaver realizes this. I can think of situations where humans have done things that I believe it would have been better for them not to do based on my own information which may be different from theirs.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#65

Post by increment_i »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #51
hawleyal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go further. All things behave this way. You were compelled to comment given your current circumstance, your particular makeup of cells and electricity sitting in your chair typing, blah blah blah. The beaver knows it's building a dam insasmuch as anyone else knows what they are doing.

That denies conscious thought to me. You can ask me why I do something. Go ask the beaver, see what it says.

Is verbally relating the reason why one does something a prerequisite to conscious thought? Dams don't get built by beavers all over the world by sheer random chance - there's obviously some deliberate intention there. Its also possible they observe and learn this process from their family members:

"When young are born, they spend their first month in the lodge and their mother is the primary caretaker while their father maintains the territory. In the time after they leave the lodge for the first time, yearlings will help their parents build food caches in the fall and repair dams and lodges." (Source: Wikipedia)

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#66

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

Mobiu5 wrote: post #62
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The beaver doesn't know what it's doing, literally. It can't tell you why, That's because beavers don't speak English. > it doesn't have a greater plan of building a dam, etc. Just because you've never seen beavers with little tiny HP calculators poring over pages of drawings and equations does not mean that beavers are mindlessly purposelessly building the dams. You think they just throw stick and through some coin…

"It is deliberate." Source?

You got me. Do you happen to know of any other critters that construct dwellings by accident, and then I guess live in them by accident too?

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#67

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

jarcane wrote: post #24
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go further - the beaver doesn't know that its building a dam. It just builds because it feels compelled to. Then when the dam is done (the beaver triggers on the sound of water falling and stops when the sound is gone) the beaver reaps some benefit. Over millions of years, beavers that behaved like this prospered. The beaver doesn't know why or even think about it. No more than you think about your particular cell en…

They'll also abandon perfectly good dams just to move up stream and build another. They're some of the most environmentally destructive critters on earth; like most creatures if allowed to thrive they'll just keep devouring every tree and damming every river until they starve and die off, only beavers can wind up taking whole ecosystems with them.

>They're some of the most environmentally destructive critters on earth.

That's rich, coming from a human.

Also, from Wikipedia: "the beaver have transformed Alhambra Creek from a trickle into multiple dams and beaver ponds, which in turn, led to the return of steelhead and North American river otter in 2008, and mink in 2009.[43][44]"

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#68

Post by cjp »

c22 wrote: post #61
mod wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. GP can reason about what he's doing. He knows that he's commenting on HN. He can come up with a plausible reason why (recreation, perhaps). In a more interesting scenario, say building a dam, GP would cut down logs with the express intention of building a dam to make a pond. The beaver doesn't know what it's doing, literally. It can't tell you why, it doesn't have a greater plan of building a dam, etc…

What possible evidence do you have to support this? Why is it crazy to think that the beaver builds a dam because it wants a place to live? Why wouldn't the beaver choose to cut down logs with the intention of using them to build a dam? After all, this is what we observe the beaver doing. Of course since we cannot inhabit the mind of the beaver we cannot know for certain whether the beaver is a thinking being or a bl…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_beaver#Behaviour

Beavers are best known for their dam-building. They maintain their pond-habitat by reacting quickly to the sound of running water, and damming it up with tree branches and mud. Early ecologists believed that this dam-building was an amazing feat of architectural planning, indicative of the beaver's high intellect. This theory was tested when a recording of running water was played in a field near a beaver pond. Despite the fact that it was on dry land, the beaver covered the tape player with branches and mud.

-- Richard P.B. (1983). "Mechanisms and adaptation in the constructive behaviour of the beaver (C. fiber L.)". Acta Zoologica Fennica 174: 105–108.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#69

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

cjp wrote: post #68
c22 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What possible evidence do you have to support this? Why is it crazy to think that the beaver builds a dam because it wants a place to live? Why wouldn't the beaver choose to cut down logs with the intention of using them to build a dam? After all, this is what we observe the beaver doing. Of course since we cannot inhabit the mind of the beaver we cannot know for certain whether the beaver is a thinking being or a bl…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_beaver#Behaviour Beavers are best known for their dam-building. They maintain their pond-habitat by reacting quickly to the sound of running water, and damming it up with tree branches and mud. Early ecologists believed that this dam-building was an amazing feat of architectural planning, indicative of the beaver's high intellect. This theory was tested when a recording of…

What does that really prove? Beavers have no knowledge of tape players. If you took that same tape player to the local police precinct and instead of a babbling brook, you played the sound of gunfire; there's a fair chance the policemen will return your gunfire with real gunfire. Does that make them no smarter than a beaver? Even if they are no smarter than beavers, is it really an irrational behavior?

>as soon as they had comfortably bestowed Sandy and me on our horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smoke shot out through the bars of my helmet, all those people broke for the woods, and Sandy went over backwards and struck the ground with a dull thud. They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons they had heard so much about from knights and other professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade those people to venture back within explaining distance. Then I told them that this was only a bit of enchantment which would work harm to none but my enemies. And I promised, with my hand on my heart, that if all who felt no enmity toward me would come forward and pass before me they should see that only those who remained behind would be struck dead. The procession moved with a good deal of promptness. There were no casualties to report, for nobody had curiosity enough to remain behind to see what would happen. --Mark Twain, A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#70

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

javajosh wrote: post #19
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #15

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it." I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy. Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food.…

>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision . One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but…

>but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part.

How do you know that?

>One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway. It's just what he does.

A beaver is not an NPC in a video game. It has actual intelligence. Maybe not much, but more than can be modeled in such a trivial way. And humans for our part are quite often found behaving irrationally and against our better interests.

>Do humans eat to keep from starving?

We eat because we're hungry, we farm to keep from starving. Why did we launch a man to visit the moon? Is the fact that the beavers haven't sent their own delegation to the moon evidence of their inferiority? Maybe they just prefer non-interventionist foreign policy.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. (23.1)

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