Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
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Dogs and humans both learn to walk, run, and jump well through experience, by doing them. To me it is implausible that a one year old human has a theory of walking, running, and jumping which she is using to gain expertise from the experience.
But as unlikely as it seems to me that a one year old human has a theory, it seems even less likely that a few-weeks old puppy dog has a theory that she is using to gain expertise from experience.
I think there is a kind of learning which needs a theory to happen, but I think that is just one kind of learning.
At this point you have to ask what you mean by "theory" and "learning".
The original method of learning was "those that did it right didn't die" - i.e. natural selection. Those that didn't die have a pattern of behavior (thanks to a random mutation) that didn't exist in previous generations, which makes them more successful gene spreaders, which passes that information on to future generations.
There is nothing in there that requires one to ask any questions at all. However, considering that there is information gained based ... (read more)