[wlievens]

I believe Moravec's paradox is a consequence of the fact that we do not consciously recognise the effort our brains/bodies do in sensorimotor computation. When we add up numbers consciously in our head, using arithmetic, it takes us quite some effort, but in the meanwhile our visual cortex is doing similar operations (unconsciously) millions of times more efficiently.

It's as if the conscious arithmetic runs on some kind of stack of virtualization layers, using millions of neurons to build a mental image of the concept of "the number five", whereas a handful of neurons would suffice to do the actual arithmetic.

I often wonder if those rare people who can do calculations in their head faster than calculators, may have - unconsciously - found a way to unlock the native hardware of their brain, bypassing all of the symbol abstractions required by us muggles. A bit like GPGPU vs CPU for certain algorithms - only orders of magnitude more pronounced.