Section 5, Chapter 8 -- Generating novel action sequences: searching, playing, and experimentation

We can observe learning based on curiosity that involves searching, playing, and experimentation. Kittens and puppies show it as well as young children. It is not clear, how low it goes in the chain of evolution, e.g. whether it includes chicks or not.

• Searching for food seems to be an activity that can produce new action sequences
• Activities that we usually characterize as playful and driven by curiosity may also produce new action sequences

The challenge for information processing is to find a method for generating novel action sequences that are not based on previous experience.

For now we have not included learning by reasoning (e.g. simple tool use), learning through communication (with people or from books), and learning through education. These topics will be addressed much later in this investigation, once the basic evolutionary roots of language have been established and clarified.

• We have also not included learning by habituation, i.e. by constant repetition of a perception or action sequence