Underscoring the inhuman minds of Uplifts, AIs and Bioroids

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Now I wonder what differences in approaches to patterns and cause-and-effect guesswork would count as Features, i.e. not be significantly better/worse than human ones.

I'm not sure it's possible for a species to be intelligent and not have a genetically hardwired tendency towards seeing patterns, including where there are none. At least not a naturally evolved species. How do they get technology and science, without that tendency?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I'm not sure it's possible for a species to be intelligent and not have a genetically hardwired tendency towards seeing patterns, including where there are none.

Well, maybe. But what sorts of patterns they see might be an interesting thing to change.

And for any species with Curious, it seems plausible to shift the level of proof required in order to accept a pattern to have a cause-and-effect link. I.e. they would go to greater length actually testing a hypothesis before accepting it as a rule of thumb, as compared to humans. This is likely to produce deeper understanding on average, but at the cost of discarding even true links if they're too superstitious-looking.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

At least not a naturally evolved species. How do they get technology and science, without that tendency?

Indeed, in the case of early (IQ6) Uplifts (or barely-sapient species with IQ6ish), this might be an explanation why they haven't developed past TL0 on their own despite existing for quite some while and/or interacting with fully-sapient ones.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Positive thinking has health-related applications, though. But a mind for which it has no effect seems totally appropriate.

Attitude can definitely have affects of performance. Morale, for example, is a Thing. It exists and impacts how groups and individuals function. No, attitude doesn't effect objective reality but it can alter factors in a person (energy level, focus, willing to push themselves) that do.

A race where it didn't have an interesting outlook. They'd have much less concern for things humans consider a given like stress reduction or aesthetics in the workplace.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Attitude can definitely have affects of performance. Morale, for example, is a Thing. It exists and impacts how groups and individuals function. No, attitude doesn't effect objective reality but it can alter factors in a person (energy level, focus, willing to push themselves) that do.

A race where it didn't have an interesting outlook. They'd have much less concern for things humans consider a given like stress reduction or aesthetics in the workplace.

Two similar examples would be the Cyth from Deadlock II and the Klackons from Master of Orion II.

The former have a Morale stat that is permanently fixed at 80% (with no way to bring it up even 1% higher), so while they have 80% productivity, they outright ignore stuff that causes riots in other species' colonies. The latter are hive-minded Selfless Workaholics, and just have a permanent +50% to industrial and agricultural productivity; they, likewise, ignore any attempts to improve morale higher (MoO2 has very little stuff that upsets the population).

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Two similar examples would be the Cyth from Deadlock II and the Klackons from Master of Orion II.

The former have a Morale stat that is permanently fixed at 80% (with no way to bring it up even 1% higher), so while they have 80% productivity, they outright ignore stuff that causes riots in other species' colonies. The latter are hive-minded Selfless Workaholics, and just have a permanent +50% to industrial and agricultural productivity; they, likewise, ignore any attempts to improve morale higher (MoO2 has very little stuff that upsets the population).

I can't help but imagine a race (used figuratively could be engineered construct like a bioroid) that doesn't have any effect from attitude or morale as being fairly robotic or insect like. But that's probably human perspective bias.

A different way but perhaps more comedic could be a "slacker" species. Nothing motivates them to give more than a certain level of effort or energy to any given task. They're natural apathic, lazy or what have you. Justifying it might be difficult.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Positive thinking has health-related applications, though. But a mind for which it has no effect seems totally appropriate.

Now I wonder what differences in approaches to patterns and cause-and-effect guesswork would count as Features, i.e. not be significantly better/worse than human ones.

Is it really positive thinking that has health benefits or simply the lack of negative self harming thoughts and unconscious behavior?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I'm not sure it's possible for a species to be intelligent and not have a genetically hardwired tendency towards seeing patterns, including where there are none. At least not a naturally evolved species. How do they get technology and science, without that tendency?

We are overly obsessed with seeing faces and human images in random input. Yet we do know that clouds that look like X have nothing to do with X.
They may develop science in order to systematically study and notice patterns rather than our opposite way of developing it to see how things aren't related.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Keiko

I can't help but imagine a race (used figuratively could be engineered construct like a bioroid) that doesn't have any effect from attitude or morale as being fairly robotic or insect like. But that's probably human perspective bias.

A different way but perhaps more comedic could be a "slacker" species. Nothing motivates them to give more than a certain level of effort or energy to any given task. They're natural apathic, lazy or what have you. Justifying it might be difficult.

Or they only perform to their own internal motivations and external concrete reasons rather than our need to please and avoid displeasing others, especially those of higher social rank.

[dcarson]

One explanation for out habit of finding patterns that aren't there. As a hunter gatherer it is better to spot 10 out of 8 lions then 9 out of 10.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by dcarson

One explanation for out habit of finding patterns that aren't there. As a hunter gatherer it is better to spot 10 out of 8 lions then 9 out of 10.

Why would you need to see a human face in a cooked tortilla for that? It's even better to get X out of X right, but I see what you mean. And while it makes perfect sense for our evolution, we're trying to come up with plausible non-human forms of thought. We certainly aren't the most likely of anything.
Why evolve intelligence when you could instead evolve greater speed, strength, weapons etc?