Monday Morning Comment on “Evolution of the Obvious”

Comments

1. Eadwacer says:
   2009/12/07 at 3:58 pm

   This is like the observation effect. I think that ER admits go up during a full moon. It’s a hectic night in the ER and I look outside — the moon is full. I remember that. I don’t remember all the hectic nights when the moon wasn’t full.

   Then there’s the XKCD approach. “When my brother died, I felt a pang in my heart” “Was the pang instantaneous, or was there a speed of light delay?”

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2. Anil Menon says:
   2009/12/08 at 4:59 am

   Thanks for the linkback, Kurt.

   Interesting point u raise here, namely, that there’s adaptive value in being alert to coincidences. If so, then the world needs to be pretty predictable and ho-hum on the whole. It’d be interesting to think of how cognition would evolve on a much more random world– say a world where events that could happen very often do happen. On such a world, would rationality be treated as something despicable, something to be cured through a proper scientific education?

   Anil

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