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On the one hand, I've got a foot in both worlds, and I emphatically agree that people tend to naively intuit that "the brain is a really big neural network". T

On the one hand, I've got a foot in both worlds, and I emphatically agree that people tend to naively intuit that "the brain is a really big neural network". This is simply false, as you say: each cell in the body has complex functionality, and brain cells communicate slow, analog, low-precision information by secreting and absorbing neurotransmitters, and there's fast, precise information communicated via pulsatile spikes. On the other hand, the more I learn about the biological side of things, the more I begin to suspect that there are compositional principles underlying biological function, that some of the complexity is in fact mere degeneracy evolved into living systems for the sake of redundancy/survivability rather than performing entirely independent functions.

eternalban 7y ago
There are 2 questions to answer: 1 - Are unknown physical principles employed-by / affective-to the living sentient organisms. (Interesting follow up: are all physical processes and phenomena comprehensible.) 2 - Are all physical processes and phenomena subject to simulation (in practice, not principle). If No (Yes) Yes, then I suppose there is nothing stopping us from building "a man in our own image".
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  Why are we trying to build a man of our image in the first place? Are there not enough men on this planet or do we want to build a better man, a man that has no faults, a man that is above all men, a man that can be a master and slave at the same time, a man we can control at our will? Why copy all the vestigial faults that come with man and not build god instead? I'm being sarcastic here and yes, I think we are trying to play god but all we have is a man to copy from, a man that we don't fully understand, a man capable of driving their whole species to extinction, a narcissistic man who wants everything replaced with their image. Had we concentrated on nature instead, we'd have long realized that everything we need is already here.
  - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
    >Had we concentrated on nature instead, we'd have long realized that everything we need is already here. What's that mean?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

eternalban 7y ago

There are 2 questions to answer: 1 - Are unknown physical principles employed-by / affective-to the living sentient organisms. (Interesting follow up: are all physical processes and phenomena comprehensible.) 2 - Are all physical processes and phenomena subject to simulation (in practice, not principle). If No (Yes) Yes, then I suppose there is nothing stopping us from building "a man in our own image".

onemoresoop 7y ago
Why are we trying to build a man of our image in the first place? Are there not enough men on this planet or do we want to build a better man, a man that has no faults, a man that is above all men, a man that can be a master and slave at the same time, a man we can control at our will? Why copy all the vestigial faults that come with man and not build god instead? I'm being sarcastic here and yes, I think we are trying to play god but all we have is a man to copy from, a man that we don't fully understand, a man capable of driving their whole species to extinction, a narcissistic man who wants everything replaced with their image. Had we concentrated on nature instead, we'd have long realized that everything we need is already here.
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  >Had we concentrated on nature instead, we'd have long realized that everything we need is already here. What's that mean?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]