[FRIAM] God

[Russell Standish]

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 04:06:01PM +0200, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> I am not sure I agree with the arguments from you Russ. You say "People aren't
> the same, but they are similar - and human society functions because we can
> predict to some extent what other people are likely to do [...]. We have also
> evolved the ability to 'put ourselves in somebody else's skin', taking into
> account the obvious external differences."
> 
> But we cannot predict what someone else will do, only if we know the person
> really well - for instance if it is your wife or husband for 30 years. In
> whodunit films it becomes clear in the end why people have acted they way they
> did, but only in hindsight. In hindsight we almost always can say why people
> acted the way they did, but we cannot predict it beforehand. You say hindsight
> is 20/20 for this in English, right?

Leave a $100 bill on a park bench. What do you predict the next person
to sit at that seat will do?

Yes - someone you know well will be more predictable - my wife says so!

I might also predict that if I disturb a magpie's nest, the bird will
attack me.

Also humans have the ability to reason what others predict they might
do (3rd order reasoning), and deliberately do a contrary thing if that
games the interaction. Not many other species have that ability (some
other great apes have been shown to reason that way, IIRC, but that's
about it). But humans are also capable of seeing through that sort of
deceit too, via 4th order reasoning, but that recursive capability
maxes out at 5th order IIUC.

I would say most humans are actually quite predictable most of the
time. But some are distinctly less so, and quite possibly successful
as a result. Donald Trump is probably like this. He comes up with a
lot of crazy stuff, so it's really hard to figure out what he's
thinking.


> 
> We also haven't evolved the ability to "put ourselves in somebody else's skin".
> It is not impossible, but can be very difficult and requires detailed knowledge
> and imagination. This is the reason why Hollywood has invented cinemas to show
> us how what it is like to be somebody else (the GoPro cameras in modern days
> have the same function).
>

Contrariwise, in a game where an object is hidden in one spot, then
when a person leaves the room, and the object is moved to another
spot. Upon returning to the room, where do you think that person will
start looking for the object. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally–Anne_test

Apparently, children under the age of 4 have difficulty with this
task, but older humans successfully see the situation from someone
else's point of view. So yes, the task is difficult, and undoubtedly
requires detailed knowledge, but adult humans are able to do this with ease.

> Therefore I tend to disagree with both statements. 
> 
> -J.
>

Maybe we don't disagree, but just misunderstand each other :).


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Dr Russell Standish                    Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders     hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
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