This AI gloop reminds me of cheap T shirts: "Nassau Yacht Club. 100% genuine youth apparel. Authentic fashion garment. Lifestyle Sports Designs, Tokyo, Paris, New York." etc etc

The default phrenological network has been found to involve the provisional cortex, the hypotheticus, the temporary lobe and the corpus curiosum.

Of course, the traps ARE tools, from a human point of view. But from the wolf's point of view they are simply a challenging food opportunity..

The idea that only humans use tools is long abandoned. We do not need to search desperately for examples of other species using tools. It is no longer surprising.
Wolves are very intelligent. This one is solving a complex problem - which is impressive enough - but not using a tool.

Example of Ned Block's distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness?

Man openeth many files, but only Jesus saves.

An ecological psychology would seek to understand how an animal's cognitive or sensorimotor capacities are adapted to its environment.
Not how they became adapted - which would be the subject of an evolutionary psychology, if a decent one existed.
Gibson/Turvey imperfect but our best effort so far.

Was going to suggest 'definition creep' but I think this might be better.

We can cure "too much money" but we don't really have anything for "no sense of humour".

You should have stated how many miles away your popcorn is from your plutonium-239.

You may be right about NS education, but ideas like yours are discussed in ecological psychology, enactivism, motor control and robotics. I'm just a chemist who used to write about AI🤷‍♂️. I may have avoided the worst of the conditioning

This is a very persuasive framing of cognition and I am thinking how it might apply to our undeniable use of symbols in language, art and mathematics. I guess language production and comprehension must be regarded as dynamic skills, with no hidden symbol manipulation underneath.

Kirsty, I am so not in that world! But thanks, and you are right, I probably should attend a competition. Skill, of all kinds, fascinates me.
I thought the whole cube craze would die, but the culture still evolves, and continues to astonish. Aidan's videos are too fast for my eyes.

Huge congrats to Aidan, BTW. I invented several cube-type puzzles (basically, the Skewbs) but I am a total klutz at solving them (Rubik's included). I am particularly in awe of cubers who can take one look at a cube and plot the entire solution in their head.

A @SciAm article once noted that records continue to be broken, and hinted that there are no limits on human performance. Kit's more nuanced treatment explains how there can be a limit that records continue to approach.
It must end when advances are too small to measure. Cube solved in 3.68999s?

I knew you had it in you! Well, that's my story now.

I am sure you know the stories of off-label uses that eventually found their way onto the label. Viagra is the best known example.

Related but different: I am irrationally annoyed when doctors prescribe something that has been shown in trials to work, although they have no convincing explanation of its action.