# What faculties is the human mind best at? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537 "2017-06-21T14:57:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/21 "2017-06-24T16:08:50Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The human mind is unusually good at pattern recognition… > [@md2000](#): > > I’m going to agree with pattern recognition… > [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > …pattern recognition abilities… > [@AHunter3](#): > > …Pattern recognition is the foundation of being able to generalize… > [@Riemann](#): > > Humans are extremely good at finding patterns… > [@Chronos](#): > > …The humans kept on finding patterns… There seemed to be a pattern in the discussion that we were having in this thread. > [@Dana\_Scully](#): > > Recognizing patterns. But I guess it wasn’t so easy to recognize? ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/22 "2017-06-24T17:54:39Z")
Monitoring non zero sum exchanges. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/23 "2017-06-24T18:09:18Z")
Since the consensus is toward pattern recognition: How does the human mind go about it? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/24 "2017-06-24T18:10:09Z")
We are creative, imagining new things like art and tools and then creating them. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/25 "2017-06-24T18:20:20Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Since the consensus is toward pattern recognition: How does the human mind go about it? Seems like there are a couple of different things that can be called “pattern recognition”. When you visually identify an object you’ve seen previously, it requires pattern recognition of the raw input data. But it seems like a different type is when you spot a new pattern. I think there is more known about the first one (neuron connectivity/weighs, etc.) then the second one. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/26 "2017-06-24T18:29:29Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > …Compared to other apes, we don’t seem to have particularly good hand to eye coordination… > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Cite? I’d like to see how well other primates can play table tennis, or golf for that matter. Or baseball, or hockey, or… anything really. Humans have incredible hand-eye coordination. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/27 "2017-06-24T18:39:15Z")
Another one, (which is probably related to language, etc.) is the ability to memorize. Sure, elephants and parrots can do some amazing things–for animals. But only people can memorize long poems word-for-word. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/28 "2017-06-24T18:51:11Z")
The Human mind is an amazing Inference Engine. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/29 "2017-06-24T19:03:18Z")
I think one thing that we need to factor in is what the human brain is good at _given its size_. In other words, if we adjust for absolute “CPU” capacity in some sense, where does it have (to use an economic expression) comparative advantage? We’re going to be better than chimps and elephants at most things, because we’re just smarter. So maybe it would be interesting to turn the question around - what can other animals (or computers) do much better than us, even though we’re much smarter overall? What are we unusually _bad_ at? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/30 "2017-06-24T19:07:58Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > What are we unusually _bad_ at? Humans have an almost supernatural capacity for Self-Deception. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537/31 "2017-06-24T19:20:29Z")
Let me take this idea for a little walk. The human mind is capable of abstraction beyond the recognition of patterns derived from its senses. It can also compose patterns (writing) for extending memory. It is also capable of communicating with other humans, sharing ideas and concepts. This leads to a great facility for social and co-operative behaviour far beyond kinship groups. It is also capable of learning from experience and from others, conceiving beyond the present and planning future outcomes. Other primates do not organise themselves into groups beyond their immediate kin. They don’t plan ahead, they don’t use tools and they don’t range very far from their immediate food sources. They have little in the way of language and they don’t try to adapt their environment by creating shelters or farming. There are no monkey temples and no monkey gods and Planet of the Apes is just science fiction. Computers are less impressive, even when all we require them to do is display on a screen or recognise a keyboard, mouse and various environmental monitors like cameras, microphones and various useful sensors. Getting a computer to recognise voice patterns, or even something more structured like music, it really quite hard. It gets worse with images, powerful computers can barely recognise faces in controlled lighting conditions. We still rely on humans to go through CCTV footage looking for clues if a crime has to be solved. Working out what is going on and recognising patterns from moving images is a remarkable feat of multi-processing. ‘2001 a Space Odyssey’ was made in 1967 and imagines the capabilities of the HAL 9000 computer created in 1992. It can control a spaceship, converse with humans, lipread, plan ahead and become neurotic. Such a computer is still many years in the future. While we now have plenty of computing horsepower for individual processors and lots of memory storage capability; programming many processors diversely connected in a network remains a really hard computing problem. Progress is slow and the software we have does not compare favourably with millions of years of evolution that produced a brain that has millions of connected neurons. Our computers are still at insect level intelligence, without their impressive micro -engineering and coordination comes as part of the small package. Pattern recognition Hand/eye co-ordination Articulate communication by voice and gesture Memory Abstract thought The latter leads to a whole raft of intelligent behaviours that go beyond the simple necessities to survive and reproduce shown by our nearest relatives and has resulted in Mans dominion over large parts of the natural world. Scifi authors contemplate this a lot…where it will all lead and how it can go very wrong. Though you don’t really have to be a crystal ball gazer to see the limitations of the human mind. The tendency towards crazy destructive behaviour is written large in the news every day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-faculties-is-the-human-mind-best-at/789537.md?page=1)