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With a background in philosophy and neuroscience, I cringe at articles like this drawing a distinction psychological and physical. They are simply the same thin

by ruffrey 10y ago

With a background in philosophy and neuroscience, I cringe at articles like this drawing a distinction psychological and physical. They are simply the same thing.

whatshisface 10y ago
>They are simply the same thing. Not really, not in any useful way. To draw an analogy to computers, a "lesioned" transistor can be expected to produce an entirely different class of bug than an incorrect line of code. While a missing semicolon is technically a case of misplaced electrons, it really wouldn't be helpful to think of it in the same way you would think of 50,000V of misplaced static charge.
- naasking 10y ago
  It's a false analogy though. Brains don't run software the way computers run software. The brain's behaviour is emergent from its physical structure.
  - prutschman 10y ago
    A computer's behavior is no less emergent from its physical structure.
    - naasking 10y ago
      Except computer behaviour isn't emergent from its structure, it's emergent from its programming which happens after its structure is fully formed. And neural structure changes during its operation, which most computers don't. They aren't remotely the same thing. Certainly you can simulate this operation of neural structure, but to suggest they are effectively the same is to suggest that cars and mice are effectively the same. They're both just made of matter aren't they?
      - prutschman 10y ago
        In order to understand computation it's obviously useful to humans to think in an abstract way about what we're trying to accomplish with a computer, and how. The distinction we draw between computer hardware and computer software is obviously part of that understanding. That said, programming is "merely" inducing specific alterations to the electrical charge distribution in the hardware of the computer. The computation we ascribe to the computer is the product of the physical changes induced in the structure of the computer by our act of programming it. As far as the physical artifact of the computer is concerned, as opposed to our mental model of it, there is no clear distinction to be made between hardware and software. That doesn't make the distinction we draw in practice an inappropriate metaphor.
        nikdaheratik 10y ago
        No that is completely wrong and it is a common mistake made by people at all levels. The available pathways inside a computer, whether at the CPU level or in memory, or the system bus do not change no matter which program you run (barring exceptional cases of malware which destroy the computer). What changes when you run a computer program is which pathways turn on and off, and these change based on reading the instruction set, which causes one operational circuit in the CPU to turn on and the results of that operation are stored for the next operation. RAM is simply a series of switches that can be "read" from the bus and passed to parts of the processor. The only thing that may, arguably, work like that is writing to a storage medium like a hard disk or tape, and even then the circuitry around the medium does not change, just the magnetic or other impression stored on the disk itself. Neurons are completely different in that they are made up of different connections to other neurons and it is these connections that make up both the storage medium, and the processing medium is what occurs when different neurons fire together. [edit] The bottom line is that the brain can create new "instructions" on its own by physically rearranging the groupings of neurons. For a computer to do the same requires a new CPU with a different instruction circuit baked into the chip.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
kmm 10y ago
It's still a useful distinction. That's like saying all software is hardware because the bits and bytes are stored in magnetic moments on hard drives etc... Or that biology and chemistry are the same thing because all living things are made of chemicals. Sure, there's some overlap, but the fields are still very distinct. Not to mention that the physiology of the mind isn't very well known. Physicalism of the mind isn't unanimously accepted in philosophy.
- naasking 10y ago
  > Physicalism of the mind isn't unanimously accepted in philosophy. Sure, and nonphysicalists believe in magic.
- fragsworth 10y ago
  I agree with the usefulness of it, particularly if the distinction is that psychological problems can be mitigated or cured through learning and dedication, while physical problems cannot, and require drugs or alterations to the body. The line may be hard to draw, but we are probably better off trying to draw it so that we don't take too many unnecessary drugs or have invasive surgeries when there are other solutions...
- ht85 10y ago
  Except comparing body to hardware and mind to software doesn't make much sense. If you want a better comparison, you could compare the mind to what happens within the CPU. Other chips would be other organs/subsystems, connected by veins, nerves and various canals (power and data buses). Then you'd have peripherals (limbs) with their firmware (reflexes), and sensors (eyes). All of those communicate together and have side effects on each other. In the analogy, the body is the whole computer, and the CPU is a part of it, they aren't two separate entities that run in parallel. If you want to compare hardware <> software, for humans it'd rather be flesh <> electrical/chemical signals. You'll notice that almost all interesting behavior happens on the right side of the <>. Flesh/hardware are pretty boring, they mostly limit performance and just have to be in good enough condition to function. Slight alterations of those (burnt transistor, internal bleeding) will bring everything down.
Dr_tldr 10y ago
Do you debug your code with a microscope and soldering iron? Layers of abstraction are useful, especially when we don't fully understand how the hardware works.
- PeterWhittaker 10y ago
  Yes, this. Exactly what I wanted to add. One day, perhaps, we will understand how all the layers interact well enough. But until then, we need the descriptive and diagnostic and prescriptive techniques provided by those abstractions.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
https://xkcd.com/435/ https://xkcd.com/435/
fit2rule 10y ago
>They are simply the same thing. This is not the accepted wisdom on the subject. The accepted wisdom is: "we don't have any evidence that these things are separate, so for now, while the jury is still out, we consider psychological and physical well-being to be equivalent".
jcfrei 10y ago
FYI: I read the same complaint in the comments of the article and submitted it with a different title. But mods have since changed it.

by ruffrey 10y ago

With a background in philosophy and neuroscience, I cringe at articles like this drawing a distinction psychological and physical. They are simply the same thing.

whatshisface 10y ago

>They are simply the same thing. Not really, not in any useful way. To draw an analogy to computers, a "lesioned" transistor can be expected to produce an entirely different class of bug than an incorrect line of code. While a missing semicolon is technically a case of misplaced electrons, it really wouldn't be helpful to think of it in the same way you would think of 50,000V of misplaced static charge.

naasking 10y ago
It's a false analogy though. Brains don't run software the way computers run software. The brain's behaviour is emergent from its physical structure.
- prutschman 10y ago
  A computer's behavior is no less emergent from its physical structure.
  - naasking 10y ago
    Except computer behaviour isn't emergent from its structure, it's emergent from its programming which happens after its structure is fully formed. And neural structure changes during its operation, which most computers don't. They aren't remotely the same thing. Certainly you can simulate this operation of neural structure, but to suggest they are effectively the same is to suggest that cars and mice are effectively the same. They're both just made of matter aren't they?
    - prutschman 10y ago
      In order to understand computation it's obviously useful to humans to think in an abstract way about what we're trying to accomplish with a computer, and how. The distinction we draw between computer hardware and computer software is obviously part of that understanding. That said, programming is "merely" inducing specific alterations to the electrical charge distribution in the hardware of the computer. The computation we ascribe to the computer is the product of the physical changes induced in the structure of the computer by our act of programming it. As far as the physical artifact of the computer is concerned, as opposed to our mental model of it, there is no clear distinction to be made between hardware and software. That doesn't make the distinction we draw in practice an inappropriate metaphor.
      - nikdaheratik 10y ago
        No that is completely wrong and it is a common mistake made by people at all levels. The available pathways inside a computer, whether at the CPU level or in memory, or the system bus do not change no matter which program you run (barring exceptional cases of malware which destroy the computer). What changes when you run a computer program is which pathways turn on and off, and these change based on reading the instruction set, which causes one operational circuit in the CPU to turn on and the results of that operation are stored for the next operation. RAM is simply a series of switches that can be "read" from the bus and passed to parts of the processor. The only thing that may, arguably, work like that is writing to a storage medium like a hard disk or tape, and even then the circuitry around the medium does not change, just the magnetic or other impression stored on the disk itself. Neurons are completely different in that they are made up of different connections to other neurons and it is these connections that make up both the storage medium, and the processing medium is what occurs when different neurons fire together. [edit] The bottom line is that the brain can create new "instructions" on its own by physically rearranging the groupings of neurons. For a computer to do the same requires a new CPU with a different instruction circuit baked into the chip.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]

kmm 10y ago

It's still a useful distinction. That's like saying all software is hardware because the bits and bytes are stored in magnetic moments on hard drives etc... Or that biology and chemistry are the same thing because all living things are made of chemicals. Sure, there's some overlap, but the fields are still very distinct. Not to mention that the physiology of the mind isn't very well known. Physicalism of the mind isn't unanimously accepted in philosophy.

naasking 10y ago
> Physicalism of the mind isn't unanimously accepted in philosophy. Sure, and nonphysicalists believe in magic.
fragsworth 10y ago
I agree with the usefulness of it, particularly if the distinction is that psychological problems can be mitigated or cured through learning and dedication, while physical problems cannot, and require drugs or alterations to the body. The line may be hard to draw, but we are probably better off trying to draw it so that we don't take too many unnecessary drugs or have invasive surgeries when there are other solutions...
ht85 10y ago
Except comparing body to hardware and mind to software doesn't make much sense. If you want a better comparison, you could compare the mind to what happens within the CPU. Other chips would be other organs/subsystems, connected by veins, nerves and various canals (power and data buses). Then you'd have peripherals (limbs) with their firmware (reflexes), and sensors (eyes). All of those communicate together and have side effects on each other. In the analogy, the body is the whole computer, and the CPU is a part of it, they aren't two separate entities that run in parallel. If you want to compare hardware <> software, for humans it'd rather be flesh <> electrical/chemical signals. You'll notice that almost all interesting behavior happens on the right side of the <>. Flesh/hardware are pretty boring, they mostly limit performance and just have to be in good enough condition to function. Slight alterations of those (burnt transistor, internal bleeding) will bring everything down.

Dr_tldr 10y ago

Do you debug your code with a microscope and soldering iron? Layers of abstraction are useful, especially when we don't fully understand how the hardware works.

PeterWhittaker 10y ago
Yes, this. Exactly what I wanted to add. One day, perhaps, we will understand how all the layers interact well enough. But until then, we need the descriptive and diagnostic and prescriptive techniques provided by those abstractions.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

https://xkcd.com/435/ https://xkcd.com/435/

fit2rule 10y ago

>They are simply the same thing. This is not the accepted wisdom on the subject. The accepted wisdom is: "we don't have any evidence that these things are separate, so for now, while the jury is still out, we consider psychological and physical well-being to be equivalent".

jcfrei 10y ago

FYI: I read the same complaint in the comments of the article and submitted it with a different title. But mods have since changed it.