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I guess I don’t understand what you mean “with no external inputs”. It’s in the physical world, with gravity. Isn’t that an external input? Driving the feedback loop of “I fall on my face if I do it wrong”?

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That falling on the face is irrelevant, as it's just a byproduct of some pre-determined programming that is not learned. Surely if this was a learned experience the deer after failing on its face would quickly learn it's best to not try and stand up. Why am I standing when I just keep hitting my face into the ground? The reality is the drive programmed into the brain is to stand up at all costs, even if that means landing flat on your face once in a while.

I guess in my mental model, the deer continues to try and stand because it wants to things like food and water, and it sees other deer standing and walking around. Psychologists do talk about a state of "learned helplessness" if a living creature fails too often.

I don’t know anything about the state of research here, this is just what I always assumed. I’m sure there are built in drives and reflexes, etc. It seems perfectly reasonable that they could be "higher level" than the ones I assumed (food, water)

I think it's more a "if I fall I'm gonna get eaten/injured and not be able to reproduce" kind of thing

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