[ethbro]

I've always had the suspicion that memoization (or lack thereof) is the primary reason really young children do and think a lot of the ways they do.

As adults, it seems like we don't actually experience every sensation of the world anymore. Most of the time it's already high level categorized (e.g. "apple") by the time it hits our conscious mind.

[candiodari]

I agree, it's obvious that human intelligence is >99.9% a behavior copying algorithm. What we call rational thought is in reality restricted to conscious exercise and it is a learned skill. A trick, nothing more, and especially not a core part of our behavior. It is not that different, at a low level, from learning to juggle balls. Rational behavior, firstly, most people just don't have it at all, and secondly even in the people who do behave rationally occasionally, it is only when things are happening slowly enough and they're putting in constant effort toward maintaining that rational behavior, constantly second-guessing themselves and going back in memory every few minutes to evaluate your own actions and formulate a plan.

And if you've been to the third world (or just a large poor part of a large western city), you'll know this is true: billions of people have never learned to act rationally, and only few and far between will ever act rationally. You can do a thought exercise with these people and figure out with them what the rational action is, and the vast majority will simply act anyway.