Evolutionary psychologist Gary Marcus was one of a number of this year’s Singularity Summit speakers whose work struck a chord. The idea of reconstructing the human mind in order to grow current computer-based technologies is (forgive the pun) a no-brainer. The latest scientific attempts to quantify what lies behind that thick human skull might seem like science fiction, but landmark programs like Switzerland’s Blue Brain Project show how innate inquisitiveness and good old fashioned pragmatism can open up a new world of research relevant to species preservation. Inside the book:
“What makes the human mind a kluge is not the fact that we have two systems per se but the way in which the two systems interact… What we have instead is only partly responsive to the overall goals of the organism, and a deliberative system (built from in appropriate old parts, such as contextual memory) that can act in genuinely independent fashion only with great difficulty” (93).
“…We tend to pay more attention to stuff that fits in with our beliefs than stuff that might challenge them. Psychologists call this ‘confirmation bias.’ When we have embraced a theory, large or small, we tend to be better at noticing evidence that supports it than evidence that might run counter to it” (53).
Marcus talks about Kluge at Google’s New York office:
[...] a new patriotism. Can the dictates of history, however blurred, prevent another Holocaust? From Kluge: the haphazard construction of the human mind by Gary Marcus: The capacity to hold explicit beliefs that we can talk about, evaluate, and reflect [...]
[...] critic of findings that are contradictory to their own. This type of unintentional bias, known as confirmation bias, would easily manifest as ordinary criticism. One would like to think that scientists, experienced [...]