17.5 Developmental Stages


Why does development apear to be stagelike? "I'll argue that nothing so complex as a human mind can grow, except in separate steps. One reason is that it is always dangerous to change a system that already works."

"Another conservative strategy is never to let a new stage take control of actual behavior until there is evidence taht it can outperform its predecessor. (NB: This reminds me of cascade-correlation model of development, because Minsky points out that development is occurring during the plateau!)

(NB: How does this material relate to Brainerd's famous BBS article on developmental stages?)


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