mujunto

Unfortunately, they never seem to provide proof that X exists, or is true

I think we can forgive Deutsch for this, because he's claiming that creativity is part of an unsolved philosophical problem. Which means we don't know how to think about it yet. We'll know when when we do know how to think about it because there'll suddenly arise answerable questions, proofs, definitions, and whatnot.

Unfortunately the Turing Test can't cut through the philosophical wrangling because, for example, imitating a human being successfully is not the same thing as evidence of thinking. Without an explanatory theory we wouldn't even know how to interpret the relevant evidence

It seems to me that entertainment without learning isn't possible. Indeed, the pleasure that entertainment affords is a straightforward signal that the brain is learning, without exception. Take humour. What was funny in the past is usually not funny now, because humour depends on our current state of knowledge and is a means of opening our minds to new ideas.

Even the pleasure that comes from addiction and drug use indicates that learning is taking place -- learning the context of the 'high' (more and more subtle detail concerning the smell of the coffee, the crackle of the cigarette paper, the label of the wine being poured, the faces of one's fellow drinkers, etc, and linking this information to the pleasure itself).

Contrariwise, if one is not entertained, if one cannot find some pleasurable feature in the situation, then one is learning nothing. So learning without entertainment is not possible either!

They've only tried 3 positions (<90 deg, 90 deg and 135 deg), and in any case they aren't working with an explanatory theory, so how on earth are they entitled to claim that 135 deg is optimal?

However I believe the optimal position is slightly reclined, for two reasons: (1) only then is there enough passive friction between the chair's back and the sitter's back to provide lateral support, (2) our spines evolved while we were walking and running around in Africa, looking mostly not at the horizon but at the ground several metres ahead, checking for snakes, pitfalls, stones, etc). thus our most natural viewing angle is less than 90 deg wrt to the spine