mellavora

Well, given the overwhelming emerging evidence of social attention and behavior in plants, and given that it makes evolutionary sense that "social attention" would provide a fitness advantage in any environment where there are other actors,

the only reason to doubt it would be an assumption that "attention to social information" can only happen in creatures with an complex central nervous systems. Which requires rather constrained definitions of "attention", "social", and "information"

ok, there is another reason to doubt it. inertia. We've been taught/told that a complex CNS is what makes intelligence, and it is hard to get away from that idea.

Yes, you just aren't as good at it as the octopus. Maybe if you practiced more?

It is hard to extend morality between species. The idea of parents sacrificing themselves for their children seems to resonate as highly moral, and is also a common pattern in biology.

But how it plays out, from humans where the male can provide more by continuing to live and "hunt/protect/teach"-- but at the risk that the "hunt/protect" might end his life, to spiders where (some species) the male gives his body to provide nutrition for the child,

well, who am I to say which is more moral?

except the mother has to care for her eggs until they hatch. So I guess we'd be fine only eating the males...

>Octopuses seem to have quite a bit of independent cognition in each of their arms, which are wrangled by the central brain.

Yes, that's inherent in the design. All grey matter (optimized for local intercommunication), no white matter (optimized for sending signals between regions).

Each arm has its own ganglion ("CPU") and the central unit struggles to keep up with these and keep them coordinated.

Yes, but always remember the plural of applepus is apple pie

But not as cool as "Whales on Stilts"

with the exceptions that an intern is (hopefully) going to learn from their mistakes and improve

The promise of capitalism is to improve people's circumstances and thus make them happy.

The promise of buddhism is to make people happy regardless of circumstances.

As someone who has lived both primarily outside and primarily inside, my preference for categories, for putting things in boxes, has a direct connection with my willingness to put myself in a box (i.e. a "room" in a "building", box in a box).

Likewise, most software/computer interfaces I know are pretty focused on putting things in boxes. For one thing, the screen is a small rectangle, and everything has to fit into a smaller rectangle in that rectangle.

Even the title "how we sort the world" implies that categories are the central element and that they can be sorted.

Nouns are the "real" thing, and verbs are transitory.

However, when you live outside, spend both days and nights without walls to encase you, my perspective flipped. Verbs became the important thing. It doesn't matter what the weather is, there is always weather, what matters is how it is changing.

A verb-centric world, where the nouns are always in transition.

Look, I like central heating and indoor plumbing. I live in a box these days. But I also remember how it was to live outside walls.

So there is some interesting research about brainwave syncing during effective communication, which certainly includes personalized instruction (tutoring) or small-class learning.

I wonder how that works with computers, when we are only sync'ing with the ghosts and statistical patterns of other humans, and those patterns are generated by electronic brains.

Checksums! Bah, I used to have to code uphill both ways in the snow, and I liked it!

You mean "win the lottery" "twice"

> What I hate about Airbnb is all the hidden fees and ridiculous homework you have to do when leaving. Regulation could have gone to fix that but yeah here are some flying pigs!

Airbnb could have gone to fix that. Why leave it to regulation?