Human Learning Compared to Chimps

[disrupter]

I was watching NOVA last night & it highlighted the differences between Chimp & Human learning & thinking.

Humans are designed to get information directly from other humans as well as to dispense it to other humans. [analogy: photocopying]
Chimps learn through observation of other Chimps [or humans].[analogy: construct personal working models of what is going on]

The program stated how the dissemination of information through the human network was much more efficient & replicated more faithfully/accurately.

Chimps will [reductively] rationally, logically cut to the chase on an something obvious, whereas humans will continue with ritualistic [neurotic (my term)] steps that rationally have no effect in accomplishing a task.

In a sense humans are entrapped in their own imaginations.
We are also benefactors of that entrapment, but must be careful not to be blind victims to it either.

As they stated it gives us certain advantages over chimps, but it is very fraught with some very serious shortfalls too.
We will believe in myths & continue those beliefs until one of us finally loudly enough proclaims it is nonsense.

If you have cynical/reductionist liar humans they can very readily deceive vast swaths of the population. I would call them sociopathic power or monetary reductionists.

While it is not bad to continue as neurotically programmable learners, it is important that there be a [emphasize] well-meaning small percentage of people who parse things for themselves to find problems or holes in the collective thinking.
ie. reality checkers.
Ideally these reality checkers would be directing/herding/persuading people in a general good direction based on the big scheme of things.

People should imo be generally guided by well meaning scientists, mathematicians & philosophers rather than by politicians, and business people.
With religion it is a matter of its usefulness or not to the big picture.
If it helps you personally cope with stress & keep you positively motivated to things that are good for you, your family, your society, life & your planet this is a good thing.
If religion becomes oblivious & especially destructive of any of those things then it must, at least in those areas, be curbed.

I do believe in maintaining all ideas, even the bad ones in storage, at least somewhere. As points of reference & for later review

as an ancillary note: there was a chimp that had a human english verbal vocabulary of 300 words. I was pretty amazed.
You can say words & a chimp will hear & understand them.
I am not clear on how or what grammar with those words they grasp,
i suspect that is much more limited, less articulate.

[petetree]

Disrupter, I saw this same program, I found the most interesting part to be when they put the 3 or 4 year old kids infront of a single Gummy Bear, if they could wait for the adult to come back, they got a bunch, or they could ring the defeat bell, and just have the one. Actually, what interested me about that peice, was the quick statement at the end, mentioning that the longer the children could ignore there basic instinct to eat the sweet, the better they did on their SAT'S...Fascinating...

[disrupter]

Does that mean they were better fed?
Had less of a sweet tooth?
Were more disciplined to follow their intellect over their impulses/compulsions?
Didn't like gummy bears?

While they mentioned it i think they also said something implying it wasn't either conclusive or was disputed.

it was an interesting point.

most of my younger life has been quite compulsive, although i had certain training/upbringing to take care of essentials in life.
if many/most people operate like i did then i find that pretty troubling.
Flying around on notions, superstitions, wild hair brained ideas.

it is kind of odd, i have changed a lot in the past decade or so. Partly it is financial security, but part of it might just be the aging process. makes me worry that i am losing some of that hysteric vitality of youth.
Maybe if i stayed hysterical/impulsive i would stay younger?
But damn this is so much calmer.

[disrupter]

I think this equates to depth of understanding or comprehension.

The adage 'monkey see, monkey do' is actually much more descriptive of people than of apes.

If the ape has no additional information [objective perceptions] it will mimic as people do. If it is obvious some of a ritual is extraneous to the results the chimp will eliminate it. The Chimp comprehends what they are doing, they have a depth of understanding. We on the other hand tend to just blindly, even in the face of obvious evidence, continue with absurdities & unnecessary actions because we are so devoted to our training & don't have the critical thinking skills to observe it objectively.

Our shallow method allows for mentality without thinking.

The byproduct of thought without actual thought.

Much like a computer that is programmed to do something, mindlessly.
The chimp on the other hand actually thinks about what it is doing.

As i have said before, shallowness does have some advantages, that our pejorative use of the word would attempt to deny. It is an amazingly efficient process of duplicative reproduction. What is perversely striking is just how shallow our thought processes generally are.

We really are like perfect mimics. Which depending on what we are mimicking can be anywhere from wonderful to suicidally disastrous.

The leveraged power of eccentric driven action(s).

Without guidance of society from some deeper, more objective thinkers it would seem it can only inevitably go wrong.

It is why we are so perfect for advertising, because we are not designed for depth of thought or critical thinking, that would raise sensible questions.
Probably why we can persist in vast & elaborate religious superstition, even when all sensible logic of experience says that is impossible.

We are neurotic mimics.
We lack depth of thought & comprehension.

One might easily argue that we are shallow & stupid.
Stupid people who do a really wonderful mimic of intelligence, without actually being intelligent.

And we use that as a defense, as if a facade of intelligence was sufficient.

Our ability to operate in denial of obvious facts may very well be our downfall,
not just in how we don't bother to live scrupulously & cooperatively on the planet, but because we will race straight at global warming, pretending it won't really affect us.

It is quite frightening,
but oddly up until we blanketed the globe we seem to have made great hay out of it.

We may yet pull something out of our collective asses mitigating or eliminating our present terminal path to destruction. I don't know that i would be betting the farm on it, though.

[disrupter]

My recent thought:
The xerox, neurotic mentality is self-doomed to incredible, reckless success followed by causing its own extinction.

I am thinking this might operate as some kind of balance mechanism between rational pragmatism of Chimps & the leveraged advantaged of xerox-neurosis.

A successful line of evolution will have to find some kind of balance.

BTW the 'suit & tie experts' you see on TV,
yeah the ones who have spun us & led us into catastrophe,
are xerox idiots of the most extreme form.

xerox perfection: Fine granular meat & sugar wrapped cinch tight around a core of poop.
The source of all their sensations of 'certainty'