f826da9ac9
A ReplyToolMixin UIWorker that grounds in the user's text selection (the <selection> block in the snapshot) and points back via select_text — both directions of deictic reference.
102 lines
4.3 KiB
HTML
102 lines
4.3 KiB
HTML
<!doctype html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta charset="UTF-8" />
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
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<title>Deixis — UIAgent demo</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="./styles.css" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<header>
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<h1>Reading room</h1>
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<button id="connect" type="button">Connect</button>
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</header>
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<main>
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<article aria-label="Octopus cognition">
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<h2>What octopuses can teach us about minds</h2>
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<p class="lede">
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A short tour of the strangest cognitive machine on Earth.
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Select any paragraph and ask the assistant to explain it,
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rephrase it, or place it in context.
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</p>
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<p>
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An octopus has roughly five hundred million neurons, about
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the same as a dog. But the wiring is unlike any vertebrate
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brain. Two thirds of those neurons live in the arms, not in
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the central brain. Each arm runs a substantial amount of
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its own motor planning and sensory integration locally,
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which is why a severed octopus arm will continue to react
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to touch and even grab nearby food for several minutes.
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</p>
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<p>
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Their skin is its own information system. Underneath are
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millions of pigment cells called chromatophores, each one
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opened or closed by a tiny ring of muscles. Layered below
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those are iridophores and leucophores, which scatter or
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reflect light. Together they let an octopus reproduce the
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color and texture of a coral, a rock, or a sandy bottom in
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fractions of a second. The remarkable detail is that
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octopuses are mostly colorblind, and yet they match colors
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accurately. The leading hypothesis is that the skin itself
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has photoreceptors and senses light directly.
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</p>
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<p>
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Cephalopods edit their RNA at extraordinary rates. Most
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animals make small, occasional substitutions in messenger
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RNA before it is translated into protein. Octopuses,
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squids, and cuttlefish make tens of thousands of edits, and
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a substantial fraction occur in the genes that build
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neurons. This may be how they fine-tune neural function in
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response to temperature without slow generations of natural
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selection. The trade-off appears to be a much slower rate
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of underlying genetic evolution.
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</p>
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<p>
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They solve novel problems. Captive octopuses learn to open
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screw-top jars, navigate mazes, distinguish individual
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human caretakers, and remember which ones have been
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unkind. There is at least one careful study in which an
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octopus, given a transparent box containing food, opened
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it the long way around rather than through the obvious
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flap, suggesting some kind of mental simulation rather than
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pure trial and error.
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</p>
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<p>
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Their relationship to time is strange. Most octopus species
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live one or two years, breed once, and die soon after, in a
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process driven by hormonal signals from the optic gland. A
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single animal can therefore acquire a remarkable range of
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skills, only to lose them on a schedule. From a human
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standpoint this looks tragic. From an evolutionary
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standpoint it is simply the cost of investing everything in
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a brief, intense life.
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</p>
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<p>
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Studying octopuses tends to widen the definition of mind.
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They evolved their cognition independently of vertebrates,
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starting from a common ancestor more than five hundred
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million years ago, when the most sophisticated neural
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tissue on the planet was probably a nerve net. Whatever
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they do with their distributed brains, they arrived at it
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on a separate evolutionary line. The result is a working
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example of intelligence built on a different plan, which
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is exactly the kind of comparison that a single-example
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field of study most needs.
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</p>
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</article>
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</main>
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<div id="status" aria-live="polite"></div>
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<audio id="bot-audio" autoplay data-a11y-exclude></audio>
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<script type="module" src="./main.js"></script>
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</body>
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</html>
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