[HN Gopher] A Brain with "Multiple Demand" Is What Drives Human ...
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       A Brain with "Multiple Demand" Is What Drives Human Reasoning,
       Scientists Say
        
       Author : rustoo
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2021-09-24 14:46 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dgist.ac.kr)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dgist.ac.kr)
        
       | dmux wrote:
       | I don't follow this subject matter too closely, but I have read
       | Marvin Minksy's "Society of Mind." Doesn't this "multiple demand"
       | concept mirror what Minksy described back in the late 1980's as
       | conflict and compromise between individual "agents"?
        
       | cestith wrote:
       | The article starts with asserting multiple times that reasoning
       | is a uniquely human trait, yet offers no evidence at the point of
       | that claim.
       | 
       | While on the surface we might like to take that at face value, we
       | really shouldn't. The same thing was said about language until it
       | was proven otherwise. Tool use, too, was proven not to be so
       | unique to us, and later tool construction. Forward planning was
       | thought uniquely human, but tool construction implies otherwise
       | (as does my dog going to grab his favorite toy on the way to go
       | outside and leaving it just inside the door for when he comes
       | back in the house). Emotions other than fear were said to be
       | unique to us, then we saw compassion within and across species.
       | It's been shown that dogs and their people produce the same
       | oxytocin response when looking one another in the eye. We've
       | taught animals mazes, food choices, which lever is a reward vs a
       | punishment, to sniff out truffles/drugs/explosives/cancer and
       | communicate to us that they've found them. Dog can alert us to
       | seizures, low blood sugar events, traffic, and the mood &
       | possible intent of other humans. What of these can be done
       | without some level of reasoning about the world?
       | 
       | To dismiss everything every species of animal does as instinct
       | and elevate ourselves and superior and special in every way is
       | hubris. Are we better at language, reasoning, creating tools, and
       | such than other species? Sure. Does that mean we can say any of
       | those things are distinctly and uniquely human without dismissing
       | evidence about several other species? No, I don't think we can.
        
         | willcipriano wrote:
         | I am fairly certain this crow[0] is reasoning about water
         | displacement.
         | 
         | [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04
        
         | Comevius wrote:
         | Especially weird because this multiple-demand pattern of brain
         | activity that plays a central part in fluid intelligence is
         | commonly found in primate brains.
         | 
         | https://www.jneurosci.org/content/36/33/8574
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-24 23:02 UTC)