>>7266804>However that phrase you used, "information sponges" catches my eye because it suggests that we do collect information almost out of habit rather than have to actively use this ability.I would agree the way we absorb raw information as well as basic problem solving is something humans engage in out of habit and general behaviour, rather than active decision-making.
>I suppose then, that even if a creature had a brain nearly identical to our own but lacked this habit would act very differently from us. That might even become the definitive trait that makes us humans. Should such a species arise.I don't think it would function as a species because one of the things that makes us so good at surviving is our ability to immediately solve problems and take specific courses of action. When most animals are put in sticky situations, like caught in a trap or something, they will just go nuts and wile out and exhaust themselves trying the same methods to escape and probably injure themselves some more in the process. They run on what we'd call 'basic instinct'. Humans will pretty quickly start solving the problem of how to escape and absorb all the information of their situation in order to aid in that. Humans will probably use the knowledge of their own capabilities (like how struggle will exhaust them) to help themselves. It's still instinctive because your body is instinctively searching for methods of escape from the trap, but its tapping into more complex problem solving functions than 'struggle as hard as possible until you escape or die'.
While, yeah, we have the capacity to panic, its not always the immediate response and its something we can get control over and stop doing, while a rabbit with its neck caught in a fence wont.
I would say that maybe other problem solvers like chimps do unconsciously observe the situation in order to solve it, but their solving abilities are simply not as good as ours.
