Monday, December 18, 2000
The three stages of knowledge acquisition:
- Instinctive: If you possess a genetic mutation that confers a favorable behavior, you pass it on. If the mutation confers a disadvantageous behavior, you don't pass it on (because you die). Thus behaviors become encoded into our genetic code.
- Intelligent: If you do something that results in bad consequences (short of death), you don't do it again. If you do something resulting in good consequences, you do it again. That is how you, as an individual, learn.
- Cultural: You learn from someone else's experience, and others learn from yours. Furthermore, knowledge doesn't disappear with the individual, but instead lives on.