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Animals accumulate living facts relevant to their everyday lives: Bees remember the location of a good dandelion field, dogs remember the path through the woods that leads to their favorite pond, and crows remember which human fed them in a park. But humans accumulate a seemingly endless number of useless (i.e., dead) facts: the distance to the moon (384,400 km), the true identity of Luke Skywalkerβs father (Darth Vader), or which Paula Abdul video starred Keanu Reeves (βRush Rushβ). Our heads are full of dead factsβboth real and imagined. Most of them will never be of any use to us. But they are the lifeblood of our why specialist nature as they help us to imagine an infinite number of solutions to whatever problems we encounterβfor good or ill.
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Justin Gregg (If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity)