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It seems the author (or paper authors) are mixing up individuality with life/agency? IOW a hard drive with information is working against entropy to keep infor
by SubuSS 6y ago
It seems the author (or paper authors) are mixing up individuality with life/agency?
IOW a hard drive with information is working against entropy to keep information active through time. But that doesn't make it an individual - IOW I see how this can be used to define a singular unit, I don't see how this idea is used to delineate the 'emergence' part: What am I missing?
- skybrian 6y agoWell, it's an individual hard drive. Maybe "individual" is independent from "alive"? It seems like a message in a suitable environment can have as much agency as a virus? This is how computer viruses work. A hard drive can work the same way; it's just a brick until someone plugs it in.
- daxfohl 6y agoI still agree with Stephen Hawking's interpretation. (Or at least he's the first one I'd heard make this interpretation, probably not his per se). Anyway, that consciousness emerges from natural selection: ability to attack/defend is strongest when you can predict the actions of your prey/predator. Ability to predict those actions is greatly strengthened when the individual can reflect on thoughts and project those onto others. This reflection is where consciousness aka "life" emerges from.