Matt Cooke describes a French study where chicks imprinted on a robot, and the robot's behavior shifted from random to purposeful. Once the chicks believed the robot was their mother, it moved toward them and responded to their calls. Cooke argues this shows intention can alter probability itself.
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This French researcher in the '90s took these baby chicks and placed them in the corner of a room and got a random event-generating robot that would statistically never deviate from just randomness around a room. And when the chicks were first placed there, the robot didn't deviate from randomness. So the French researcher said, well, there's surely a way to switch this up. What about if I put the 'Put the eggs in the corner of the room first. Wait for the chicks to hatch because the chicks will then imprint on the first thing they see as their mother.' So he did. And when the chicks hatched and they imprinted on their mother thinking the robot was their mother, the robot then moved from randomness right to the cage and just went up and down the cage. What? How? Because the first experiment, the chicks knew that the robot wasn't its mother. Right. Because they didn't imprint on it. The second round, the chicks genuinely thought the robot was its mother. So the chick's intent. The energy. Yeah, the intent, the love to call in their mother. There was no disbelief. There was no like, this robot's not my mother. It's like, this is my mother. And their intent to call their mother in pulled a random robot to the cage.
