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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

by 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.
- hueving 10y ago
  That analogy isn't very apt because the CPU by itself doesn't have memory. The CPU+motherboard+ram+hard disks is closer to the brain. You could argue that power supply and the speakers, microphone, nic, and webcam are like the energy supply and inputs to the brain though.
0xcde4c3db 10y ago
"This is the secret of C's portability: it is the best representation of an abstract computer that we have. Of course, the abstraction is done over the set of real computers, not some imaginary computational devices." -- Alexander Stepanov One can certainly quibble over the historical accuracy of this, but I think Stepanov describes a worthwhile principle. My sesnse is that a lot of clinical psychology is still trying to abstract over imaginary brains (often by boiling away all the nuance and ambiguity from some ancient philosopher's musings) instead of the set of real brains.

by kmm 10y ago

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.

hueving 10y ago
That analogy isn't very apt because the CPU by itself doesn't have memory. The CPU+motherboard+ram+hard disks is closer to the brain. You could argue that power supply and the speakers, microphone, nic, and webcam are like the energy supply and inputs to the brain though.

0xcde4c3db 10y ago

"This is the secret of C's portability: it is the best representation of an abstract computer that we have. Of course, the abstraction is done over the set of real computers, not some imaginary computational devices." -- Alexander Stepanov One can certainly quibble over the historical accuracy of this, but I think Stepanov describes a worthwhile principle. My sesnse is that a lot of clinical psychology is still trying to abstract over imaginary brains (often by boiling away all the nuance and ambiguity from some ancient philosopher's musings) instead of the set of real brains.