I’ll bite: how am I supposed to judge (or predict) the usefulness of facts when I first see them, in time to avoid storing the useless ones?
I think the closest we get to this is that every time we remember something, we also edit that memory, thus (if we are rational enough) tossing out the useless or unreliable parts or at least flagging them as such. If this faculty worked better I might find it a convincing argument for “intelligent design,” but the real thing, like so much else in human beings, is so haphazard that it reinforces my lack of belief in that idea.
I don’t think one necessarily edits the memory. Memories intrinsically decay over time; each recall is associated with a greater chance of being able to recall it in the future (memorization), with bonuses to spaced out recollections (spaced repetition) and optional userland hinting to the OS (going to sleep while expecting to be tested on something leads to greater retention for the same number of reviews).
In other words, the brain is a cache that implements Least Recently Used eviction.
Why would you expect intelligent design to explain that very much better than evolution?
I think the reasoning is more along the lines that intelligent design is worse at explaining haphazard mush than it is at explaining well ordered things. As such an observation of well ordered things will result in a high weighting for intelligent design than an observation of haphazard mush in the same place simply because it must be discounted far less in the former case.
Right, but that’s only half the story… I wouldn’t say it’s zero evidence, but “convincing argument” seems far flung when there’s plenty of reason for evolution to select for better use of our brain meats.
I’ll bite: how am I supposed to judge (or predict) the usefulness of facts when I first see them, in time to avoid storing the useless ones?
I think the closest we get to this is that every time we remember something, we also edit that memory, thus (if we are rational enough) tossing out the useless or unreliable parts or at least flagging them as such. If this faculty worked better I might find it a convincing argument for “intelligent design,” but the real thing, like so much else in human beings, is so haphazard that it reinforces my lack of belief in that idea.
I don’t think one necessarily edits the memory. Memories intrinsically decay over time; each recall is associated with a greater chance of being able to recall it in the future (memorization), with bonuses to spaced out recollections (spaced repetition) and optional userland hinting to the OS (going to sleep while expecting to be tested on something leads to greater retention for the same number of reviews).
In other words, the brain is a cache that implements Least Recently Used eviction.
Why would you expect intelligent design to explain that very much better than evolution?
I think the reasoning is more along the lines that intelligent design is worse at explaining haphazard mush than it is at explaining well ordered things. As such an observation of well ordered things will result in a high weighting for intelligent design than an observation of haphazard mush in the same place simply because it must be discounted far less in the former case.
Right, but that’s only half the story… I wouldn’t say it’s zero evidence, but “convincing argument” seems far flung when there’s plenty of reason for evolution to select for better use of our brain meats.