| It’s a common trope that “we are no different from animals,” but this is not true. Of course we are. Far more interesting than the fact that animals “can” ape behavior is how they do - and how that differs from humans. Check out the work of Richard Byrne [1]. Our best theories suggest that the way primates share behavior is through literal parsing and replication of sequences. A chimp is able to watch a fellow chimp complete a complex maneuver to open a nut, and can replicate that sequence. But the sequence can contain odd moves that obviously have no effect, and those moves too will be replicated. This signals a lack of understanding. Primates use an advanced copycat mechanism, which makes innovation very slow. The way humans learn and transfer behavior is vastly different. We watch another complete a task and develop an explanation for how it works. Our reproduction isn’t us following a literal sequence, but using our understanding/mental model to solve the task. For example, if I watch a complex sequence to open a tricky nut, I’ll have developed a model for the physics of the nut, weak points, ways to get leverage, etc. I might memorize and repeat your sequence, but I might also get creative with my own method, knowingly or not. And, of course, we can do this one-shot. It’s the difference between a parrot mirroring words and a person retelling a story they heard. We are super different than animals, and denying that fact will hide important secrets about knowledge and creativity. [1] https://web.media.mit.edu/~cynthiab/Readings/Byrne-99.pdf |