Leafy comments on Neural Categories - Less Wrong

24 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 February 2008 12:33AM

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Comment author: Leafy 12 October 2010 12:01:10PM 1 point [-]

Two questions that occur following reading this:

1) Using the Blegg/Rube example would it be reasonable to suggest that the reaction to a purple egg would be different had it occured 20 years of working on the machine with no anomalies, than if it was the first off of the conveyor belt ... or the fith etc? What would be a threshold between casual acceptance and dumbfounded confusion?

2) The concept of neural pathways strengthening with usage and heightening connections through multiple observations leads to the question: At birth are our neural pathways all of equal "strength" and if not have we established yet what pre-existing configurations we are born with? (Is there an ultimate human "priori" with which we all start off or are there genetic differences, and if so are there any general constants?) Apart from an unlucky few am I right in saying that at birth there is a ready-made connection between sharp teeth/claws/aggresive noises and fear regardless of the occurence of previous observations or not?