What Have You Learned Today?

[Zenophas]

Also, got in there early on Jong-Il's death didn't you?

Apparently so. I frequent Nationstates. News travels pretty fast around those parts.

[rice303]

I leaned that My uncle had originally been traviling to queensland in australia when stopping at melbourne and renting a flat where a man was shot then 2 days later found out ther the murderer was in the last floor of that flat. Then I found out they went to a friends place who was originally an abused child and had found out that his grandfather had sexually abused him when he was young. My uncle stayed in melboure while the first friend he was staying with left. However my uncle was handed a shotgun by the drunken friend and had fired it then my uncle gave it back and heard his friend say he was gonna kill his grandfather soon. 13 months later 15 minutes away form where I live my uncle had witnessed his drunk friend ring the doorbell and shoot his grandfather (true to his word) he was then sent to jail where he hung himself and my uncles best friend (the non abused one) commited suicide with a butchers knife that my uncle had sharpened for him.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Not so much what I learned, but what another has not.

Check out this novel little table which produces very beautiful dynamic art. He says he's spent years developing the device.

I'm not sure how he will handle the painful embarrassment when someone finally breaks the news he's burned years reinventing 30 year old flatbed plotter technology.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

I learned how to tie my shoes.

[Zenophas]

I learned how to tie my shoes.

It's actually nearly impossible to teach someone how to tie their shoes if you're not looking at them and you're just narrating it.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Planet of the Apes?

Chimp out performing 99% of humans in memory test.

[MrTwosheds]

Ill vote for him!
Second thoughts, there may be a very VERY well paid job vacancy at the bank of England...He'll need a very understanding tailor.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Try it yourself guys and gals, with HALF the numbers.

Now that you've been owned by a Chimpanzee, I'm sure some kind of awkward rationalization will bounce around in that grey slop you self-righteously call a superior brain.

[MrTwosheds]

Well you probably need a much better memory, if your vocal chords aren't up to the job of getting someone else to remember stuff for you.

[MrTwosheds]

Actually thinking about it, the chimp has outsmarted the test...He has no complex vocal chords or the complex brain functions associated with them, He is not counting 123...and using all the brain processes a human would do to complete the task, he is using pattern recognition. We all do this when performing ordinary everyday activities, like walking or swinging from branches, info straight from the eyes, via the brain to the muscles, no need to think about it too much.
The presence of the recognisable numbers slows a human down, if the buttons had pictures of fruit, for example, all we would need to do is learn the sequence, oranges apples bananas etc and then train enough at pressing the buttons in that order, just like playing a computer game...
All of this does not actually tell us much about the memory abilities of chimps, just that they don't get slowed down by numerical processing that the task does not actually require.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

My conjecture, and it is purely conjecture, since I have not looked into professor Matsuzawa's research ...at all... is it might be more than phenomenal eidetic memory.

It might also be possible the chimps use an after-image effect to quickly see the numbers. (*I would be stunned if Matsuzawa has not eliminated this factor) However, the chimp must still learn sequential numbers with gaps.

Still amazing regardless.

The memory may have evolved with the need to instantly establish and retain 3D support structures around them (tree branches) when at fatal heights above ground so the need to actually visually locate is not needed for recent branches, especially in blackness.


(*stare at the dot of the 'i' for 25 seconds and look at a blank wall, this may be close to instantaneous for chimps)

[Red Devil]

Prepare yourselves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKdSXfPl8vY

[MrTwosheds]

I think it more likely that it is do do with the different brain structures of Human and chimp, while I don't doubt that the chimp can learn numbers, it cannot not vocalise them or use the complex thought procedures most humans would use in doing that.
The Chimp does not "think" 1 2 3 4 6 8, like you or I would, it has learned the pattern of the symbol and knows they should proceed in a certain order, Its probably been doing this all its life in the lab, It is using the skills you or I might use when playing BZ2, we do not "think" the words, he's dodging left, we just see and react. But with numbers, we evaluate them and automatically engage a complex thought process that the chimp just cannot do, because it does not have a human voice or the brain structures required to speak and evaluate the numbers like we do.
However the chimps brain is probably equal or better than a human one at recognising and reacting to instant stimulus.
Both walking and swinging between branches, require a considerable amount of visual input processed very quickly out to muscle control, You don't need to use concious thought in order to walk, the patterns of the terrain are processed directly out to muscle movements, This is the process used when you play a pc game, visual input translated straight out to muscles via learned responses. A human could probably easily match the chimp at this task if numbers were NOT used to define the sequence. It is the humans ability to process and evaluate complex information that slows us down.

Someone needs to teach a chimp to play BZ2, actually maybe they already have....

[Zenophas]

That I can use a microphone as a harmonica as a pseudo-guitar.

[Zenophas]

That I should have had never gone through with a second semester of college. I am nothing but disappointed in myself for devoting so much time to 2D arts.