AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

[Anton Vredegoor]

Stephen Horne <$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$@$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.co.uk> wrote:

>
>Now consider the "Baldwin Effect", described in Steven Pinkers "How
>the mind works"...

<SNIP>

>A human brain is not so simple, but what this says to me is (1) that
>anything that allows a person to learn important stuff (without
>damaging flexibility) earlier in life should become innate, at least
>to a degree, and (2) that learning should work together with
>innateness - there is no hard divide (some aspects of neurological
>development suggest this too). So I would expect some fairly fixed
>heuristics (or partial heuristics) to be hard wired, and I figure
>autism and Asperger syndrome are fairly big clues as to what is
>innate. Stuff related to nonverbal communication such as body
>language, for instance, and a tendency to play activities that teach
>social stuff in childhood.

Sometimes I wonder whether Neandertals (a now extinct human
subspecies) would be more relying on innate knowledge than modern Homo
Sapiens. Maybe individual Neandertals were slightly more intelligent
than modern Sapiens but since they were not so well organized (they
rather made their own fire than using one common fire for the whole
clan) evolutionary pressure gradually favored modern Sapiens.

Looking at it from this perspective the complete modern human
population suffers from Aspergers syndrome on a massive scale, while a
more natural human species is now sadly extinct. A great loss, and
something to grieve about instead of using them in unfavorable
comparisons to modern society, which I find a despicable practice.

However let the Aspergers, and maybe later robots (no innate knowledge
at all?) inherit the Earth, whether programmed with Pythons Neandertal
like bag of unchangeable tricks or with Lisp-like adaptable Aspergers
programming.

Anton