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Just like with humans, dolphins that play with each other are presumable more “normal” and their play is a result of being the way they are.

sambeau 2y ago
I think you have that the wrong way round. They are the way they are as a result of play. Play is fundamental to their adult behaviour.
- scienceyist 2y ago
  I think you're both wrong. It's actually bidirectional: dolphins with more harmful mutations are less likely to 'play' normally, and play is also extremely beneficial to development.
  - I_o_IllI__o_I 2y ago
    [dead]
etiam 2y ago
Yes. Or put another way, there has to be something off for social mammal juveniles not to play together with others. And something off is not generally popular with mating females.
- aebtebeten 2y ago
  On that note, "7 minutes in Heaven" is in Munroe's "Computers may never outplay humans" category in https://xkcd.com/1002/ https://xkcd.com/1002/ . (as glass bead games are closely related to Calvinball, I'd be interested to see if that categorisation remains accurate or if we wind up in the world of https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ )
  - etiam 2y ago
    What a delightful followup. I just found out about "7 minutes in Heaven", but as it's described on the WWW, I'd hazard a guess Ken Jennings could in principle find himself dethroned simply by current technologies with copious amounts of reinforcement feedback (and letting Honda iterate a bit on the implementation). Conquering Calvinball seems like it's going to require at least 810 and probably quite a bit beyond that.
  - Dr_Birdbrain 2y ago
    What are glass bead games?
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#:~:text=The%20rules%20of,seemingly%20unrelated%20topics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#:~:text=Th....
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  I found the above comment juxtaposed with this comment funny. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40686631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40686631

sambeau 2y ago

I think you have that the wrong way round. They are the way they are as a result of play. Play is fundamental to their adult behaviour.

scienceyist 2y ago
I think you're both wrong. It's actually bidirectional: dolphins with more harmful mutations are less likely to 'play' normally, and play is also extremely beneficial to development.
- I_o_IllI__o_I 2y ago
  [dead]

etiam 2y ago

Yes. Or put another way, there has to be something off for social mammal juveniles not to play together with others. And something off is not generally popular with mating females.

aebtebeten 2y ago
On that note, "7 minutes in Heaven" is in Munroe's "Computers may never outplay humans" category in https://xkcd.com/1002/ https://xkcd.com/1002/ . (as glass bead games are closely related to Calvinball, I'd be interested to see if that categorisation remains accurate or if we wind up in the world of https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ )
- etiam 2y ago
  What a delightful followup. I just found out about "7 minutes in Heaven", but as it's described on the WWW, I'd hazard a guess Ken Jennings could in principle find himself dethroned simply by current technologies with copious amounts of reinforcement feedback (and letting Honda iterate a bit on the implementation). Conquering Calvinball seems like it's going to require at least 810 and probably quite a bit beyond that.
- Dr_Birdbrain 2y ago
  What are glass bead games?
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#:~:text=The%20rules%20of,seemingly%20unrelated%20topics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#:~:text=Th....
lotsofpulp 2y ago
I found the above comment juxtaposed with this comment funny. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40686631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40686631