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> just happens to be created in a manner similar to the most widespread or powerful technological metaphor of the time. I don't see how this is supposed to len
by hackinthebochs 7y ago
> just happens to be created in a manner similar to the most widespread or powerful technological metaphor of the time.
I don't see how this is supposed to lend support to an anti-reductionist program. That we historically identified the workings of nature with the most technically or computationally sophisticated machinery of the time just shows that we intuitively recognize the power of mechanical processes to "implement" the structure and dynamics of other systems. That our computational metaphors get more sophisticated doesn't somehow invalidate the prior metaphorical reduction. All it does is further flesh out and substantiate the reduction.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoDon't you find it suspiciously convenient? All of these metaphors were products of their time, and none of them came close to really solving the problem. They just state "Well obviously this is just..." and declare the problem solved. I'm not convinced that can be considered a history of unqualified success for technological reductionism.
- hackinthebochs 7y agoThinking of these metaphors as independent attempts at explaining nature is missing what was valuable about them. Their value isn't measured by how successful they were at an explanation, they were successful in orienting our thinking towards using lower level mechanism to explain higher level phenomena. But this effort isn't undermined as our understanding of mechanism becomes more sophisticated.
- mannykannot 7y agoI agree that none of these metaphors, including the digital computer one, have come close to providing anything close to an explanation of consciousness, but if the premise that a sufficiently-detailed digital simulation of a brain would have a mind turns out to be correct, then, by Turing equivalence, there is a sense in which the medium does not matter. Of course, none of the pre-Turing materialist claims were predicated on this insight!