the entire brain and body needs to get built by a mere 25,000 genes. My current low-confidence feeling is that reasonably-comprehensive pseudocode for the human hypothalamus would be maybe a few thousand lines long.
That confirms what I have been getting around to over time: Human instincts and motivational systems are probably built from few elements. I used to think that there are hard-wired motivations/interests for specific types of sports or hobbies or people and how this could be coded for. But after reading Steven’s sequence, I look more for simple patterns like geometric features, hormonal triggers, or sensory triggers that could—after a lot of learning—give rise to such preferences. Maybe some sport is only interesting because it involves fast-moving objects in the visual field and the smell of grass…
That confirms what I have been getting around to over time: Human instincts and motivational systems are probably built from few elements. I used to think that there are hard-wired motivations/interests for specific types of sports or hobbies or people and how this could be coded for. But after reading Steven’s sequence, I look more for simple patterns like geometric features, hormonal triggers, or sensory triggers that could—after a lot of learning—give rise to such preferences. Maybe some sport is only interesting because it involves fast-moving objects in the visual field and the smell of grass…