Do Transformers Reason about Electric Sheep?

Evolution for 3.5–4.5 billion years has developed unconditioned reflexes and instincts in terrestrial carbon life sufficient for survival and distribution. Cumulatively, these and other types of behavior are called genetic memory. Homo sapiens, in this respect, is no different from other forms of life. However, something differentiates them favorably in the ability to distinguish, evaluate, and understand what is true and false, valuable and useless, moral and immoral. Instead of two extremes, there may be an interval, but invariably one thing, this ability to distinguish is called intelligence (a noun from the Latin verb interlego = inter — between + lego — (se)lect = to distinguish, sort out — later acquired the meaning of to understand — understanding).

At what the moment did the critical leap from the slowly adapting collective unconscious occur? When did the rapid growth of intelligence, not associated with genetic memory, begin?

The Dual Inheritance Theory and the ideas of Memetics suggest that the growth of intelligence was accompanied by an increase in the amount of knowledge accumulated in the population, what would not have been possible without effective mechanisms for assimilation, transfer, and, what is more important, the derivation of new knowledge. Our species overtook evolution with the help of collective knowledge — culture. And it all began when one of the organisms projected its knowledge to another.

Assimilation

Assimilation of knowledge comes from the physical world, a complex system by its nature. The primary knowledge about the environment of its existence, the protohuman, like other animals, assimilated in the form of conditioned (learned) reflexes. The variety of situations gives rise to a variety of knowledge, for example, about falling objects under the influence of gravity, about pain when in contact with fire, about the fact that the discovered fruit is poisonous as a result of the reaction of the body. Such knowledge is absorbed through the joint work of the sensory and central nervous systems, and forms a world model. The activity that forms this model is motivated by universal reinforcement. A form of reinforcement is the intrinsic reward, which is regulated by the neurotransmission of dopamine in dopaminergic pathw...

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments