We very much have in our own brains a bag of words and a set of numbers which are correlations. We also have other things, which we apply in a very general way.
For instance, the ability to create a map of spatial, kinetic relationships - to predict that our path will intersect the path of the buffalo herd - can be applied to lots of other situations. It can even be applied to non-physical situations. (Will spending exceed taxes in 10 years from now? Will my memory allocation strategy result in buffer overlow?)
I'm guessing a bit at just what other modeling apparatus we have, nobody knows for sure. We do know that our minds contain a complete, manipulatable model of our bodies - which can also be used to model other bodies, and other situations as well ("the town is at the elbow of that river"). What else do we have?
As I read the three "responses" I don't see a "B" level understanding or any understanding at all. Certainly not what I would have expected from a university undergraduate. As you say, it's just a bunch of words strung together. But OTOH perhaps that is the level of response expected in a short-answer response to an identification of terms? But then, so would a cut-and-paste of the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article.
Maybe I'm coming in at the middle of a longer series of questions.
Regarding the human trophism towards inferring intentionality:.
Some years ago there were imaging results suggesting the existence of what were called "mirror neurons". These neurons fired under two distinct stimuli. The first was an activity, e.g. throwing a rock. The other stimulus was observing someone engage in the same activity. The rock thrower is, of course, aware of their intention. From there it is a short step to inferring the intention of the other rock thrower. When observing a tree struck by lightning, the leap to inferring anger on the part of some invisible sky god is not great.
You may find it interesting to check out “Concept of Mind” by Gilbert Ryle and Daniel Dennett’s works for a deeper dive into this arena. You have started down a wonderfully provocative inquiry.
We very much have in our own brains a bag of words and a set of numbers which are correlations. We also have other things, which we apply in a very general way.
For instance, the ability to create a map of spatial, kinetic relationships - to predict that our path will intersect the path of the buffalo herd - can be applied to lots of other situations. It can even be applied to non-physical situations. (Will spending exceed taxes in 10 years from now? Will my memory allocation strategy result in buffer overlow?)
I'm guessing a bit at just what other modeling apparatus we have, nobody knows for sure. We do know that our minds contain a complete, manipulatable model of our bodies - which can also be used to model other bodies, and other situations as well ("the town is at the elbow of that river"). What else do we have?
As I read the three "responses" I don't see a "B" level understanding or any understanding at all. Certainly not what I would have expected from a university undergraduate. As you say, it's just a bunch of words strung together. But OTOH perhaps that is the level of response expected in a short-answer response to an identification of terms? But then, so would a cut-and-paste of the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article.
Maybe I'm coming in at the middle of a longer series of questions.
Regarding the human trophism towards inferring intentionality:.
Some years ago there were imaging results suggesting the existence of what were called "mirror neurons". These neurons fired under two distinct stimuli. The first was an activity, e.g. throwing a rock. The other stimulus was observing someone engage in the same activity. The rock thrower is, of course, aware of their intention. From there it is a short step to inferring the intention of the other rock thrower. When observing a tree struck by lightning, the leap to inferring anger on the part of some invisible sky god is not great.
You may find it interesting to check out “Concept of Mind” by Gilbert Ryle and Daniel Dennett’s works for a deeper dive into this arena. You have started down a wonderfully provocative inquiry.
Yes, we certainly give ourselves too much credit for “thinking.”