Why do we like starchy foods?

[shkrobius]

When being asked what separates humans from other primates, people are quick to say it is their brain. In fact, the differences can be superficial and even unimportant. Using a palm calculator, I can calculate everything a supercomputer can calculate; it would take longer time. However, an ape does not seem to be able to compose a sonnet given all

Comments

[gineer]

\\>> no audible signaling and socialization....
\\You are kidding, right?

Not that way as it natural to mammals I mean.

\\All animals can do that. In this sense, any animal mind is "human proto-mind".

Of course.
I'm not (that) anthropocentric.
It seems that you cannot approach AI built with ideological shores like that.

\\The genetic differences are already known and catalogued. They shed no light on what is special about humans.

Yes. Because there is none.

\\A lot of people, like you, believed that it would, but it did not. A hundred years ago, it was believed that studies of brain morphology and physiology will pinpoint the crucial difference. They did not. Then it was believed that neurology will do it. It did not either. Cellular biology didn't. Etc. Genetics have joined a long list of previous failures.

So what? :)
What is your point?
That there is an eternal mystery behind this question? :)

\\It is awfully hard to create something of which you have no idea what it might be.

Exactly.

\\The whole approach is a blind alley.

Yeap.

\\We are not ready for even asking the right questions.

And whose fault is it?

\\Too little is known about the most basic things and the tools are too crude.

It was so in 50-th, 60-th... even in 80-th
But now its a quite different story

\\That was the situation 300, 200, 100 years ago and it remains so today.

If you want to believe that way.

\\ And I do not see any urgency to answer this question, which is obviously not ripe for a fruitful inquiry.

Bingo! :)
Did it come to you? Its useless to inquire why the question is SO hard, if you even do not want to know an answer.

\\We do not know what to do with 10 billion "intelligencies" that we already have.

Of course we do not.
Because we still unsure (as for me... more exactly -- hesitant) about what is intelligence.

Its your own words. Just here.
"It is awfully hard to create something of which you have no idea what it might be."
And I add for sure -- especially if you fear to know an answer...
What if it will be like with Darwin. :)

[shkrobius]

Not being able to ask the right question is no one's fault. You are not surprised I suppose that no one during Newton's time was able to ask the right question about, say, glucose metabolism. People could've been banging their heads trying to explain diabetes, but they did not have basic notions even to approach the problem from the right side. It is the same thing here. If you want to ever know the answer, it makes more sense to focus on experiments that disprove phlogiston theory instead of fantasizing about the causes of diabetes. Simple and basic things come first. There was no lack of doctors spinning all kinds of theories of the disease, and some of these theories were very clever; still it was all waste of time.

It is the same thing about fantasizing about the crucial differences between apes and humans. The question cannot yet even be formulated in a form conducive to a straight answer, and formulating it in the right way already means half-answering it. I am not afraid of hearing this answer for the same reason I am not afraid of hearing any answer: I already know the grand answer, I've always knew it, but it is awfully too general, while I am interested in specific detail. I've read my share of books on the brain, cognition, intelligence etc. and I do not see substantive difference between these books and medieval grimoirs. I do not see merit in following and reading such stuff, even if it is produced by the yard and is being read by the yard, and I stay clear from such subjects, as you could've noticed yourself. I love science; I am not too hot on fanciful imitation of science. There is nothing wrong with it, but there is near-zero chance that such activity produces truth, and even if it does, by coincidence, there is no way to ajudicate what is and isn't true. If you stick to science, the answer to the difference question is not known, and it is not even clear in which direction to seek it. The obvious things have been tried and led nowhere and, as I see it, no one has the slightest idea what's to be done next. So people spin just-so-stories. These are amusing stories, I grant you that, but these are no more than stories. Ten years ago it was different stories; 20 years ago yet another set of stories were in fashion, etc. It is a caleidoscope of uninformed opinion.

[gineer]

\\Not being able to ask the right question is no one's fault.

We can try and learn how to ask right questions
or
we can refrain from such trials and fall into bigotry and religious fundamentalism.

I still think its up to us to choose.

Look at Yudkovsky's struggle (http://lesswrong.com/) to facilitate people to be rational, for example.

\\You are not surprised I suppose that no one during Newton's time was able to ask the right question about, say, glucose metabolism.

Why you choose Newton's times? Not Bronze Age or even Stone one... with troglodytes. :)
This your argument would be even more impressive, expressive and victorious that way. ;)

\\People could've been banging their heads trying to explain diabetes, but they did not have basic notions even to approach the problem from the right side.
\\It is the same thing here.

Is it? Really?

\\If you want to ever know the answer, it makes more sense to focus on experiments that disprove phlogiston theory instead of fantasizing about the causes of diabetes.
\\Simple and basic things come first.

There is no doubts.

\\There was no lack of doctors spinning all kinds of theories of the disease, and some of these theories were very clever;
\\still it was all waste of time.

Is it? How could you know that?

\\It is the same thing about fantasizing about the crucial differences between apes and humans.

I see no proves of your statements higher. Other then obvious appeal to "common sense".
Do you know that common sense rarely working well in new domains?
So why I must believe to you that this unproven conclusion is correct?

\\The question cannot yet even be formulated in a form conducive to a straight answer, and formulating it in the right way already means half-answering it.

Heh...
Then.
How do you imagine to yourself the process of coming to right formulation?
(as for me, such straight question is part of way of understanding of intelligence)
Does it look like usual process of trials and error,
or you have something more interesting on your mind?

\\I am not afraid of hearing this answer for the same reason I am not afraid of hearing any answer: I already know the grand answer,

42? ;)

\\Ten years ago it was different stories; 20 years ago yet another set of stories were in fashion, etc.
\\It is a caleidoscope of uninformed opinion.

So, what?
You mean it will lasts forever?

[gineer]

\\Not being able to ask the right question is no one's fault.

""Проблема творчества/эволюции принципиально не решаема в рамках существующей научной парадигмы, ограничивающейся описанием лишь пространственных структур объектов. Введение представления о темпоральной сложности позволяет нам формулировать появление принципиально новых (ранее не существовавших) структур/вещей как редукцию темпоральной сложности в пространственную.""

http://ailev.livejournal.com/1014511.html?thread=10301167#t10301167

All discussion there is quite interesting too.