>I never said we didn't. Why would anyone collect data without knowing the problem that it will be used for? It bears emphasis because trying to measure stuff

>I never said we didn't. Why would anyone collect data without knowing the problem that it will be used for? It bears emphasis because trying to measure stuff without new theories has been a besetting problem in fields such as psychology and medical research and I think a major reason why many studies can't be reproduced. >I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that the Kolmogorov complexity of an otter's brain is greater than that of a human's. Yes. But my point is that we wouldn't need to understand much about how human hardware works if we could only understand how an otter brain works. Beyond that the complexity is due to human culture/memes, which we study in their own right anyhow (in fields such as history, politics, literature).