4 ms·

> Language and vision are just the beginning — the parts we were able to digitize first - not necessarily the most central to intelligence. I probably made a m

> Language and vision are just the beginning — the parts we were able to digitize first - not necessarily the most central to intelligence. I probably made a mistake when i asserted that -- should have thought it over. Vision is evolutionarily older and more “primitive”, while language is uniquely human [or maybe, more broadly, primate, cetacean, cephalopod, avian...] symbolic, and abstract — arguably a different order of cognition altogether. But i maintain that each and every sense is important as far as human cognition -- and its replication -- is concerned.

wizzwizz4 1y ago
People who lack one of those senses, or even two of them, tend to do just fine.
- oasisaimlessly 1y ago
  Mostly thanks to other humans helping them. If all humans lacked vision, the human race would definitely not do just fine.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    I think we need to think about vision and world modelling somewhat separately. We could construct an artificial (tech enhanced) society where sight was not available. People would still "model the world in their minds" with the "abstract model" part of the vision/world system.
dinfinity 1y ago
Vision is interesting in that it leverages the maximum speed with which it is easily possible to gather information about our surroundings in this universe. I believe that is what makes it special and very valuable. I also believe this aspect makes it a strong attractor for convergent evolution. Language allows encoding and compression of information about the world, which is of course incredibly powerful and increases communication bandwidth enormously (as well as tons of other stuff). I'd say that for high level cognitive processes, hearing and speaking were an important stepping stone because for some reason evolving organs that can generate relatively high bandwidth signals in audio seems to be easier than evolving something that does that for visuals (very few Teletubby screens on tummies in the natural world). Interesting games to think about in this sense: Pictionary/drawing games and charades.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Regarding visual communication, I think you downsell posturing, gesturing and facial expressions a little. They may not be as high bandwidth as talking but they are very low latency and pretty stealthy if necessary.
  - dinfinity 1y ago
    Well, there is sign language, so I guess you're right. It would be interesting to see how high bandwidth gesturing can be compared to speaking. I thought about this some more and I think the prevalence of making sounds rather than gesturing etc. is due to sound being a broadcasting mechanism that works over long distances and without line of sight. Visually indicating that you've claimed some territory is pretty hard.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      I was thinking more about "low level" communication which can be gleaned from body language, frowns, smiles, gaze, winks, pointing etc. Perhaps not very information dense, but very fast.

wizzwizz4 1y ago

People who lack one of those senses, or even two of them, tend to do just fine.

oasisaimlessly 1y ago
Mostly thanks to other humans helping them. If all humans lacked vision, the human race would definitely not do just fine.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  I think we need to think about vision and world modelling somewhat separately. We could construct an artificial (tech enhanced) society where sight was not available. People would still "model the world in their minds" with the "abstract model" part of the vision/world system.

dinfinity 1y ago

Vision is interesting in that it leverages the maximum speed with which it is easily possible to gather information about our surroundings in this universe. I believe that is what makes it special and very valuable. I also believe this aspect makes it a strong attractor for convergent evolution. Language allows encoding and compression of information about the world, which is of course incredibly powerful and increases communication bandwidth enormously (as well as tons of other stuff). I'd say that for high level cognitive processes, hearing and speaking were an important stepping stone because for some reason evolving organs that can generate relatively high bandwidth signals in audio seems to be easier than evolving something that does that for visuals (very few Teletubby screens on tummies in the natural world). Interesting games to think about in this sense: Pictionary/drawing games and charades.

actionfromafar 1y ago
Regarding visual communication, I think you downsell posturing, gesturing and facial expressions a little. They may not be as high bandwidth as talking but they are very low latency and pretty stealthy if necessary.
- dinfinity 1y ago
  Well, there is sign language, so I guess you're right. It would be interesting to see how high bandwidth gesturing can be compared to speaking. I thought about this some more and I think the prevalence of making sounds rather than gesturing etc. is due to sound being a broadcasting mechanism that works over long distances and without line of sight. Visually indicating that you've claimed some territory is pretty hard.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    I was thinking more about "low level" communication which can be gleaned from body language, frowns, smiles, gaze, winks, pointing etc. Perhaps not very information dense, but very fast.