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It frustrates me that the engineering community has so little recollection of its own history that it doesn't even contextualise /this/ question as one of the f

by nanna 8y ago

It frustrates me that the engineering community has so little recollection of its own history that it doesn't even contextualise /this/ question as one of the founding problematics of its own specialism, and our cybernetic age in general. The question of whether the brain functions discreetly ('digitally') or continuously ('analogue') was one of the three main debates at the Macy Meetings in the 1940s. [0] For example Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts effectively staked their careers on the brain being a fully digital network, as a computer. But John Von Neumann was more cautious, arguing that the digital function of the brain rested on a chemical, analogue foundation, and that it was unclear whether messages were coded in a digital or analogue way. Julian Bigelow argued that mathematicians and physicists preferred to ignore the biological structure of neurons and identify them with their digital operation. This debate strikes at the heart of the debate between the difference between analogue and digital, and in my opinion it's a philosophical, not just physiological, problem. [0] For anyone interested in this history I'd highly recommend Ronald R. Kline's work, especially The Cybernetic Moment (p 46-47)

gldalmaso 8y ago
Interestingly the DNA structure was discovered in the 1950s. In what ways could it have shaped that discussion?
- nanna 8y ago
  Historically speaking, I'm not sure, but I'd imagine the same debate would be had there too. This isn't just an epistemological question, but the product of multiple scientific revolutions (the return of atomism in the late 19C, quantum mechanics, neurophysiology, cybernetics...), so, to take a Kuhnian position, the innovations of the 1950s especially are well within the same epistemological regime.
- taejo 8y ago
  Mendel already showed the discreteness of genes, without knowing the structure of DNA, in the 1860s. And I believe Darwin, though not aware of Mendel's work, realised that continuous genes would be a problem for his theory.
no_identd 8y ago
Why not both? Left neocortex hemisphere handles discrete, right handles continuous. Iain McGilchrist makes a convincing argument for that in his book The Master and His Emissary. Also, the main difference between 'hardware' and 'wetware' arises as a consequence of a very simple cybernetic principle, to quote Wikipedia: "Also in 1960, [Manfred Clynes] discovered a biologic law, "Unidirectional Rate Sensitivity," the subject, in 1967, of a two-day symposium held by the New York Academy of Science. This law, related to biologic communication channels of control and information, is basically the consequence of the fact, realized by Clynes, that molecules can only arrive in positive numbers, unlike engineering electric signals, which can be positive or negative. This fact imposes radical limitations on the methods of control that biology can use. It cannot, for example, simply cancel a signal by sending a signal of opposite polarity, since there is no simple opposite polarity. To cancel, a second channel involving other, different molecules (chemicals) is required. This law explains, among other things, why the sensations of hot and cold need to operate through two separate sensing channels in the body, why we do not actively sense the disappearance of a smell, and why we continue to feel shocked after a near-miss accident." See also here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/NYT3.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/NYT3.jpg Also, fun fact about the Macy conferences that a friend of mine pointed out to me recently: According to Hayles, neither the term nor the word “reflexivity” exists anywhere in the Macy foundation transcripts, which means no one introduced it to cybernetics from 1946-1953.
- dopu 8y ago
  > Why not both? Left neocortex hemisphere handles discrete, right handles continuous. Iain McGilchrist makes a convincing argument for that in his book The Master and His Emissary. I haven't read the book, but this sounds totally absurd. What kind of evidence is there for this?
  - no_identd 8y ago
    That question has a very complex and complicated answer, hence why McGilchrist devoted the entire first half of the book to it, I can hardly summarize it here. You might want to watch the RSA Animated talk by McGilchrist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI If this reminds you of Julian Jaynes, then yes, there exists some similarity, but, to quote Wikipedia: "McGilchrist, while accepting Jayne's intention, felt that Jayne's hypothesis was "the precise inverse of what happened" and that rather than a shift from bicameralism there evolved a separation of the hemispheres." In my opinion, it seems like a better question to ask then consists of asking if what McGilchrist describes holds 'all the way down', and I lack an answer to that.

by nanna 8y ago

gldalmaso 8y ago

Interestingly the DNA structure was discovered in the 1950s. In what ways could it have shaped that discussion?

nanna 8y ago
Historically speaking, I'm not sure, but I'd imagine the same debate would be had there too. This isn't just an epistemological question, but the product of multiple scientific revolutions (the return of atomism in the late 19C, quantum mechanics, neurophysiology, cybernetics...), so, to take a Kuhnian position, the innovations of the 1950s especially are well within the same epistemological regime.
taejo 8y ago
Mendel already showed the discreteness of genes, without knowing the structure of DNA, in the 1860s. And I believe Darwin, though not aware of Mendel's work, realised that continuous genes would be a problem for his theory.

no_identd 8y ago

Why not both? Left neocortex hemisphere handles discrete, right handles continuous. Iain McGilchrist makes a convincing argument for that in his book The Master and His Emissary. Also, the main difference between 'hardware' and 'wetware' arises as a consequence of a very simple cybernetic principle, to quote Wikipedia: "Also in 1960, [Manfred Clynes] discovered a biologic law, "Unidirectional Rate Sensitivity," the subject, in 1967, of a two-day symposium held by the New York Academy of Science. This law, related to biologic communication channels of control and information, is basically the consequence of the fact, realized by Clynes, that molecules can only arrive in positive numbers, unlike engineering electric signals, which can be positive or negative. This fact imposes radical limitations on the methods of control that biology can use. It cannot, for example, simply cancel a signal by sending a signal of opposite polarity, since there is no simple opposite polarity. To cancel, a second channel involving other, different molecules (chemicals) is required. This law explains, among other things, why the sensations of hot and cold need to operate through two separate sensing channels in the body, why we do not actively sense the disappearance of a smell, and why we continue to feel shocked after a near-miss accident." See also here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/NYT3.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/NYT3.jpg Also, fun fact about the Macy conferences that a friend of mine pointed out to me recently: According to Hayles, neither the term nor the word “reflexivity” exists anywhere in the Macy foundation transcripts, which means no one introduced it to cybernetics from 1946-1953.

dopu 8y ago
> Why not both? Left neocortex hemisphere handles discrete, right handles continuous. Iain McGilchrist makes a convincing argument for that in his book The Master and His Emissary. I haven't read the book, but this sounds totally absurd. What kind of evidence is there for this?
- no_identd 8y ago
  That question has a very complex and complicated answer, hence why McGilchrist devoted the entire first half of the book to it, I can hardly summarize it here. You might want to watch the RSA Animated talk by McGilchrist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI If this reminds you of Julian Jaynes, then yes, there exists some similarity, but, to quote Wikipedia: "McGilchrist, while accepting Jayne's intention, felt that Jayne's hypothesis was "the precise inverse of what happened" and that rather than a shift from bicameralism there evolved a separation of the hemispheres." In my opinion, it seems like a better question to ask then consists of asking if what McGilchrist describes holds 'all the way down', and I lack an answer to that.