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> I was under the impression it was hacked together by the statistical process known as evolution stacked over many years... The problem with that argument is

> I was under the impression it was hacked together by the statistical process known as evolution stacked over many years... The problem with that argument is that it comes close to Chomsky's concept of a "built-in" universal language, which has been demonstrated to be mostly wrong (some African languages differ wildly; attempts to produce a universal grammar mostly failed; humans who grow up in isolation never really acquire language). Whatever evolution has bestowed upon our brain seems to be first of all flexibility and adaptability, not a series of inflexible statistical "hacks".

_delirium 15y ago
Refutations of Chomsky haven't really refuted a more general built-in-functionality argument, looked at on a wider plane than sentence parsing. Not many people in neuroscience seriously reject the idea in the bigger picture, e.g. the idea that there are parts of the brain hard-wired for vision processing, and that we seem to have evolved to be more adept at certain kinds of vision-processing tasks than others. It's even widely believed (though more controversially) that we have built-in face-recognition machinery, which operates differently from the general object-recognition machinery. Similarly, we seem to have wiring fairly specialized for tasks like "maintain balance" and "process vibrations in the ear".
- bluekeybox 15y ago
  > Nobody in neuroscience seriously rejects some variety of built-in functionality in the bigger picture Absolutely correct, but I was using the more narrow interpretation of "human intelligence" as "traits that make us distinct from most other mammals". Most higher animals have specialized structures for vision processing and most of them are also good at "maintaining balance". What makes humans unique is the adaptability of our brains I was talking about and the ability to acquire different symbolic systems with relative ease (at least as young children).

_delirium 15y ago

Refutations of Chomsky haven't really refuted a more general built-in-functionality argument, looked at on a wider plane than sentence parsing. Not many people in neuroscience seriously reject the idea in the bigger picture, e.g. the idea that there are parts of the brain hard-wired for vision processing, and that we seem to have evolved to be more adept at certain kinds of vision-processing tasks than others. It's even widely believed (though more controversially) that we have built-in face-recognition machinery, which operates differently from the general object-recognition machinery. Similarly, we seem to have wiring fairly specialized for tasks like "maintain balance" and "process vibrations in the ear".

bluekeybox 15y ago
> Nobody in neuroscience seriously rejects some variety of built-in functionality in the bigger picture Absolutely correct, but I was using the more narrow interpretation of "human intelligence" as "traits that make us distinct from most other mammals". Most higher animals have specialized structures for vision processing and most of them are also good at "maintaining balance". What makes humans unique is the adaptability of our brains I was talking about and the ability to acquire different symbolic systems with relative ease (at least as young children).