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I found it odd how he noted rooting and nursing instincts in infants, then said that we aren't born with rules or software. That seems self-contradictory.
by khedoros 10y ago
I found it odd how he noted rooting and nursing instincts in infants, then said that we aren't born with rules or software. That seems self-contradictory.
- rdiddly 10y agoHe's saying "rules" and "software" are just metaphors to attempt to explain these instincts. They are a way of saying it.
- khedoros 10y agoWell, yes, but he's saying that "rules" and "software" are incorrect metaphors, and that they are a way of saying it wrong. I think that's an important distinction. What strikes me in the section of the article with the six metaphors is that each one is "true" at a certain level of abstraction, and as time progresses, the abstraction gets thinner and thinner and closer to reality. The author's claims that I have the biggest problem with are that brains don't store or process information. We clearly do. Our behavior depends at least partly on past experience and our perceptions of current circumstances. When I remember something, do I assert the read and address lines on a NAND chip and latch the data into a register? No, certainly not. Do I trace a weighted graph of neural connections forming a fuzzy cloud of meaning? At the least, that's closer to what I'm doing, and I'd still classify it as information storage and retrieval. The author doesn't seem like they're attacking the imprecision of a metaphor. They seem like they're rejecting the "brain as a computer" metaphor outright.