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On 25/09/2020 02:03, Spike wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.59.1600995799.3037.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Oops. I am certain I posted the incorrect link. Here's the right one, thanks Dan:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds</a></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
No surprises there.<br>
<br>
I also fits in with a book I'm currently reading (quite possibly on
a recommendation from this list, I don't remember): "Why everyone
(else) is a hypocrite" by Robert Kurzban. If someone here did
recommend it, I'd like to thank them, and re-recommend it to
everyone.<br>
It's about how our minds are made up of thousands of functional
modules, specialised for all kinds of different things, and why they
don't always agree, leading to the kind of results talked about in
Spike's article, among other things, like scientists being
religious, hypocrisy in general, and people putting locks on their
refrigerator doors (does that <i>really</i> happen? I don't know
whether to believe it or not, but it illustrates the point well).<br>
<br>
I was thinking that this view of the human mind could well be useful
to AI researchers, and that not taking it into account could even
partly explain our dismal progress to date at creating AGI. I
remember someone years and years ago talking about a mind being a
'loosely-bound bundle of parallel processes', which is not too far
from this idea of modules doing their own thing, and not necessarily
co-operating perfectly with each other (by design, or rather,
evolution).<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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