Mechanisms for learning
[{"sender": "Joscha Bach", "recipients": [], "timestamp": "Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 3:02 AM", "subject": "Re: Mechanisms for learning", "body": "Some thoughts I meant to send back for a long time:\n\nno worry, if i understand correctly you are suggsting there are layers 1 through N. lets cal them L 1 -\nLn. there are times T 1- Tn / and then conjecture that changing the time . correlations ( by genetic swtch\nor other method. , you might be able to make blacks smarter by changing the time for motor layer\ndevelopment and changing the time for other layers. . ). like telemeres for the cell , are their equivalents\nfor the layers. . as you talked about culling the unused neurons in each layer, each neuron in each layer\nwould get dfferent ( kill yourself if you are not being used instructions ).\n\nExactly. I looked up the statistics, black kids in the US have slower cognitive development (and never catch\nup), which the study of course attributed to social factors without any evidence, and they had faster motor\ndevelopment! I suspect this means their brains are slower at learning high-level concepts, because the low-\nlevel structures are optimized for a shorter time. But they will keep the lead in motor development, because it\nis easier to learn, and they have more time and attention to practice once they get the structures in place.\nIt could also be that they have an additional set of learning directives in place that adapts them better to a\nmore hunting/running style of life, whereas the Europeans had to adapt for identifying long-term seasonal\npatterns, delayed gratification for agriculture etc.\n\nand CONCEPTS could be layer to layer communicaiton. . are gender differences also a matter of time,\nand structure of interactions. .\n\nI suspect gender differences are mostly motivational, i.e. we have a reward system for all the different social\nand cognitive needs, which makes us receive different kinds of pleasure and pain, thereby pay attention and\nlearn. You cannot learn what does not attract your attention. Women tend to find abstract systems, conflicts\nand mechanisms intrinsically boring. Most women in computer science do not write programs because they\nenjoy solving puzzles, but because they want to help people, get approval etc. There are almost no women in\nmath, because it does not help people or yield social attention.\nMen tend to find elaborate social relations boring. If there is no pleasure in observing and empathizing with\npeople, one will not have good social cognition.\n\nIQ is not the only meaningful difference. Chinese pay an inordinate amount of attention to authority. I\nsuspect historically., the authorities tended to kill them a lot if they did not. Jews tend be intellectually\nindependent and anti-authoritarian, which might make them creative and inventive in ways that are hard to\nfind in Asia.\n\nAt the moment, I think speed/quality of brain development plus motivational system are the key to\nunderstanding both mind and individual differences. Important part of human language might be the result in\na motivational need to discover/invent grammatical structure, which as a side effect makes us interested in\nmusic.\nIt would mean that Chomsky's life long hypothesis, that people have a special circuit for grammatical\nlanguage, is wrong. They might be GENERAL learners, just like Gorillas, but with a strong motivational\nurge to build grammatical structure, which the brain simply invents (there are only a few ways in which a\nnatural language can work). That is much easier to wire into a brain than a specific circuit.\n\ni my self believe that african music, westrn music , chinese music are a window into the the structure of\nthose layers. . western rigid, african primitve , chinese nature based, . I belive that synphoic movments\nbest describe your layering, they open with a basic simple melody„ after it is learned, it is repeated and\n\" developed\" , inverted, distorted, related, etc. the development stage take a long time. then there is a\nrecapitlaltion of the whole. and its inter and intra actions. . african musci has lots of beats. and little\ndevelopment. - no accident, it mirrors their learning process.\n\nInteresting question if music is somehow indicative of genetically defined prefs, but I am not sure. It could\nbe path effects, starting in culture.\n\nre taboo\n, maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation.\nfire. potentailly a good thing for the species\n. the earths forest\n\nMaking having children expensive in terms of upbringing and missed opportunity (like in the west) is a more\nhumane way. Environmental stress while leaving near rock bottom tends to lead people to have more\nchildren, because there is no missed opportunity, and high mortality requires more attempts at procreation.\nHumans are a hardy species, outside of focused famine events and wars only small fractions of any given\npopulation die.\n\nI suspect that strong reductions in population will come from large-scale failure of agriculture. The climate\nchange itself with result in migration and wars, but most people will probably survive that. But who knows, I\nmight be wrong.\n\ntoo many people, so many mass executions of the elderly and infirm make sense\nis the fundamental fact that everyone dies at some time .make it imporrisbole to ask so why\nnot earilier. if the brain discards unused neurons, why shold socieity keep their equivalent\n\nThe radical idea of treating individuals in a society as cells and the society itself as a well-organized\norganism is fascism, or course. Probably the most efficient and rationally stringent way of governance, if\nsomeone could pull it off in a sustainable way; and if it is aggressive and expansive, its efficiency makes it a\nvirus that everybody will want to stomp out. Fascism makes romantic doo-gooders like me very\nuncomfortable (I visited KZ Buchenwald five times and it had a profound influence on me; we East Germans\ninoculated ourselves very thoroughly against fascism), and the general public will not be willing to consider\nit.\nI rather like the treatment Fascism gets in the Amazon Series \"The Man in the High Castle\", which explores\nwhat would have happened if the Germans and Japanese had won the war: A society that tries to function as\na brutal and ruthlessly efficient machine, eliminating all social and evolutionary slack. It is very dark, but not\na flat caricature of pointless evil for its own sake. Heinlein's late book \"Starship Troopers\" explores fascism,\ntoo, but unlike Philipp K Dick he does not see it as a form of insanity, but as the most desirable order.\n\nI find your \"political incorrectness\" very fascinating. In the beginning, I thought it is a form of costly\nsignaling, but now I think you are simply entirely unconstrained in your thoughts. How did you manage in\nyour youth? Did you get in trouble, or did you keep your thoughts to yourself? I wonder what kind of person\nyou want to transform into.\n\nIt was interesting to notice that at the Forbidden Research conference, nobody managed to say anything\nremotely out-of line. One large discussion group wanted to address the question of whether \"democracy still\nworks\", and mostly expressed their disagreement with Trump. Ideology is like halitosis: easy to see in others,\nhard in oneself A speaker felt that the media \"stifle all criticism of Trump\", another wanted to remove \"men\nand Elon Musk from government\", and everybody strongly agreed that we need more diversity everywhere.\n\nI noticed some time ago that Joi has remarkable public communication skills. He picks controversial, insight-\nladen topics, but sanitizes them by carefully replacing the parts of content that would divide his audience\nwith symbolic messages that everybody can fill with their own content in a way that resonates with them.\nThe non-controversial parts will still be insightful. He manages to come across as very subversive, while\nrarely offending anyone (except the hard scientists, that miss hard substance).\nHe also asks influential people and smart students or faculty to write parts of his essays and speeches for\nhim. This invests them in his success, especially because he is going to reward and acknowledge them. Very\nfew of his ideas are original, instead he is good at identifying and testing thoughts he reads or hears from\nothers.\n\nI am still beset by the ruinous instinct that the goal of communication ought to be mutual understanding. Joi\nis right. Public communication is about reaching one's goals.\n\nBests,\nJoscha"}, {"sender": "jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com>", "recipients": [], "timestamp": "Am 23.07.2016 um 04:41", "subject": "Re: Mechanisms for learning", "body": "Cells seem to be mostly indistinguishable (except for XX), I thought?\n\ngender differenece. unlikely motivational, every cell is different. size is didfferent. . \nthe more radical idea is that brains are the nucleus of the human\" cell: the body the membrane, . the \norganizm the colletcions and interactions of brains, wisdom of crowds . mirroring. etc. . money \nused as signals. as is spoken language. . what does social behavior mean, it is the cooridination of indiv \nbrains. = \n\nI think that mathematics based thinking does not allow for censorship. money people concepts if they \nare all math , then poliiical correctness and their structures are only subsets of a larger group of \nthoughts. its not emotinal for me. \n\nmost people have censorship built in at a deep level, social reasoning gets to different results than equivalent \nabstract reasoning"}, {"sender": "Joscha Bach", "recipients": [], "timestamp": "Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 6:02 PM", "subject": "Re: Mechanisms for learning", "body": "Size is different on average, but males with small brains are still male. \nVariation of all traits is higher for males, so there are more high IQ men (wider bell-curve). Given average \nbrain size difference, the small difference in average IQ is surprising, I think"}, {"sender": "jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com>", "recipients": [], "timestamp": "Am 24.07.2016 um 00:20", "subject": "Re: Mechanisms for learning", "body": "the average is the only thing that matters"}, {"sender": "Joscha Bach", "recipients": [], "timestamp": "Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 1:23 AM", "subject": "Re: Mechanisms for learning", "body": "Average humans are probably not fully able to learn how to program etc. Fraction of people that reshape the \nworld are at the right end of the Bell curves, so difference in variation means fewer women. We tend to be \nmore interested in the outliers. Have people explicitly evolved to be not to be too smart on average, or is \ngeneral intelligence so hard to get from human brains?"}, {"sender": "jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com]", "recipients": ["Joscha Bach"], "timestamp": "7/24/2016 5:44:28 AM", "subject": "Re: Mechanisms for learning", "body": "average humans is the wrong term. it is humans that are distributed think ant colony.( workers soldiers etc \n) not average ant. no such thing. in isolation"}]