5 ms·

> In other words, all life thinks Only for a hyper-inclusive definition of "think" that loses any communicative value.

by ebg13 6y ago

carapace 6y ago
I commented 36 minutes ago and the video is 52 minutes long, which makes me suspect that you didn't watch it. It's pretty thought-provoking, I don't think you'll be disappointed by it.
- ebg13 6y ago
  > I commented 36 minutes ago and the video is 52 minutes long, which makes me suspect that you didn't watch it. Youtube video playback speed is configurable.
  - carapace 6y ago
    So you did watch it? What do you think?
    - ebg13 6y ago
      It's an excellent presentation, and I'm grateful that you shared it and agree that people should watch it. But I still say that using the word "thinking" for non-macro-scale biomechanical processes is charlatanism. We don't know how we get from molecules to thoughts, but saying "therefore thoughts" is a bridge too far. If you start doing that, the words we reserve for discussing the leap from mechanism to self lose their meaning because suddenly an automatic door is thinking, which is just...not...necessary.
      - outworlder 6y ago
        > But I still say that using the word "thinking" for non-macro-scale biomechanical processes is charlatanism. This is some pretty strong language. We all use words to abstract concepts. It's not clear what "thinking" even means from a scientific standpoint. We can be pretty broad on the definition if this is a philosophical discussion. > suddenly an automatic door is thinking It is certainly performing an action in response to stimuli. And, given that more electronics are shifting to microcontrollers, a modern automatic door might as well have the machinery required to 'think', or at least, it will have a computer. There's no evidence that our brain is any different from an automatic door – or more specifically, from an enormous collection of automatic doors.
        yetihehe 6y ago
        > There's no evidence that our brain is any different from an automatic door – or more specifically, from an enormous collection of automatic doors. "specifically" is key here. People want to differentiate between one tree and whole forest. Maybe you don't, but there is a reason why those two words exist. The same is with one door and enormous collection of doors acting as a whole big brain. The same is with intelligence of automatic doors and of humans. They live on continuum like light and dark, but we still have words for light and dark.
      - perfmode 6y ago
        historically, it is simply called consciousness in various traditions
      - carapace 6y ago
        > It's an excellent presentation, and I'm grateful that you shared it and agree that people should watch it. Cheers! Thank you. > I still say that using the word "thinking" for non-macro-scale biomechanical processes is charlatanism. Fair enough. (FWIW, Galileo turned the charlatans' toys into telescopes.) > We don't know how we get from molecules to thoughts, but saying "therefore thoughts" is a bridge too far. If you start doing that, the words we reserve for discussing the leap from mechanism to self lose their meaning because suddenly an automatic door is thinking, which is just...not...necessary. Meaning no disrespect, this sounds like a philosophical rather than a scientific objection to me. Which is fine, but I want to ask, necessary for what? I actually don't know if I think cells are robots or tiny people. It seems to me that slime molds think, and already must have some kind of "self", but do they count as a person? Or the lowly trichoplax[1], a kind of tribe of cells, is it a person? Cybernetics has a result that says that any efficient self-regulating system must contain an image of itself to function. - - - - [1] > There are no neurons present, but in the absence of a nervous system the animal use short chains of amino acids known as peptides for cell communication, in a way that resembles how animals with neurons use neuropeptides for the same purpose. Individual cells contain and secrete a variety of small peptides, made up of between four and 20 amino acids, which are detected by neighbouring cells. Each peptide can be used individually to send a signal to other cells, but also sequentially or together in different combinations, creating a huge number a different types of signals. This allows for a relatively complex behavior such as crinkling, turning, flattening, and internal churning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax#Signal_processing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax#Signal_processing
numpad0 6y ago
I don’t understand the problem with being inclusive a bit. Plants could be aware, so could be all life of all the Kingdom, we kill them and we eat them for own survival. What’s wrong with that? We’re just a bunch of talking animals. A huge bunch with complicated tools but technically still wild animals. As for sun tracking in plants I do agree with you it’s probably not a sign of intelligence. If that’s your point, you can just point out that part.
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  In that case, what word is left for what a human does in their brain that a plant can't?
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    Why does there need to be a specific word to describe that? You can just say humans and plants think in different ways, or through different mechanisms.
    - yetihehe 6y ago
      > Why does there need to be a specific word to describe that? Communication efficiency. I'd like to have one short term for this so that I don't need to make elaborate differentiations every time I need to use it.
      - op03 6y ago
        "Our language is an imperfect instrument created by ancient and ignorant men. It is an animistic language that invites us to talk about stability and constants, about similarities and normal and kinds, about magical transformations, quick cures, simple problems, and final solutions. Yet the world we try to symbolize with this language is a world of process, change, differences, dimensions, functions, relationships, growths, interactions, developing, learning, coping, complexity. And the mismatch of our ever-changing world and our relatively static language forms is part of our problem." - Wendell Johnson (Semanticist) Good example of ppl who make up new words to "simplify" things as their world gets more and more complex every year are Lawyers and Accountants. But even so sometimes you end up requiring buildings full of them to decipher what one sentence they came up with last year actually means this year. The problem is not the Lawyer or the Accountant but Human Language itself.

> In other words, all life thinks Only for a hyper-inclusive definition of "think" that loses any communicative value.

by ebg13 6y ago

> In other words, all life thinks Only for a hyper-inclusive definition of "think" that loses any communicative value.

I commented 36 minutes ago and the video is 52 minutes long, which makes me suspect that you didn't watch it. It's pretty thought-provoking, I don't think you'll be disappointed by it.

ebg13 6y ago
> I commented 36 minutes ago and the video is 52 minutes long, which makes me suspect that you didn't watch it. Youtube video playback speed is configurable.
- carapace 6y ago
  So you did watch it? What do you think?
  - ebg13 6y ago
    It's an excellent presentation, and I'm grateful that you shared it and agree that people should watch it. But I still say that using the word "thinking" for non-macro-scale biomechanical processes is charlatanism. We don't know how we get from molecules to thoughts, but saying "therefore thoughts" is a bridge too far. If you start doing that, the words we reserve for discussing the leap from mechanism to self lose their meaning because suddenly an automatic door is thinking, which is just...not...necessary.
    - outworlder 6y ago
      > But I still say that using the word "thinking" for non-macro-scale biomechanical processes is charlatanism. This is some pretty strong language. We all use words to abstract concepts. It's not clear what "thinking" even means from a scientific standpoint. We can be pretty broad on the definition if this is a philosophical discussion. > suddenly an automatic door is thinking It is certainly performing an action in response to stimuli. And, given that more electronics are shifting to microcontrollers, a modern automatic door might as well have the machinery required to 'think', or at least, it will have a computer. There's no evidence that our brain is any different from an automatic door – or more specifically, from an enormous collection of automatic doors.
      - yetihehe 6y ago
        > There's no evidence that our brain is any different from an automatic door – or more specifically, from an enormous collection of automatic doors. "specifically" is key here. People want to differentiate between one tree and whole forest. Maybe you don't, but there is a reason why those two words exist. The same is with one door and enormous collection of doors acting as a whole big brain. The same is with intelligence of automatic doors and of humans. They live on continuum like light and dark, but we still have words for light and dark.
    - perfmode 6y ago
      historically, it is simply called consciousness in various traditions
    - carapace 6y ago
      > It's an excellent presentation, and I'm grateful that you shared it and agree that people should watch it. Cheers! Thank you. > I still say that using the word "thinking" for non-macro-scale biomechanical processes is charlatanism. Fair enough. (FWIW, Galileo turned the charlatans' toys into telescopes.) > We don't know how we get from molecules to thoughts, but saying "therefore thoughts" is a bridge too far. If you start doing that, the words we reserve for discussing the leap from mechanism to self lose their meaning because suddenly an automatic door is thinking, which is just...not...necessary. Meaning no disrespect, this sounds like a philosophical rather than a scientific objection to me. Which is fine, but I want to ask, necessary for what? I actually don't know if I think cells are robots or tiny people. It seems to me that slime molds think, and already must have some kind of "self", but do they count as a person? Or the lowly trichoplax[1], a kind of tribe of cells, is it a person? Cybernetics has a result that says that any efficient self-regulating system must contain an image of itself to function. - - - - [1] > There are no neurons present, but in the absence of a nervous system the animal use short chains of amino acids known as peptides for cell communication, in a way that resembles how animals with neurons use neuropeptides for the same purpose. Individual cells contain and secrete a variety of small peptides, made up of between four and 20 amino acids, which are detected by neighbouring cells. Each peptide can be used individually to send a signal to other cells, but also sequentially or together in different combinations, creating a huge number a different types of signals. This allows for a relatively complex behavior such as crinkling, turning, flattening, and internal churning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax#Signal_processing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax#Signal_processing

numpad0 6y ago

I don’t understand the problem with being inclusive a bit. Plants could be aware, so could be all life of all the Kingdom, we kill them and we eat them for own survival. What’s wrong with that? We’re just a bunch of talking animals. A huge bunch with complicated tools but technically still wild animals. As for sun tracking in plants I do agree with you it’s probably not a sign of intelligence. If that’s your point, you can just point out that part.

jimmaswell 6y ago
In that case, what word is left for what a human does in their brain that a plant can't?
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  Why does there need to be a specific word to describe that? You can just say humans and plants think in different ways, or through different mechanisms.
  - yetihehe 6y ago
    > Why does there need to be a specific word to describe that? Communication efficiency. I'd like to have one short term for this so that I don't need to make elaborate differentiations every time I need to use it.
    - op03 6y ago
      "Our language is an imperfect instrument created by ancient and ignorant men. It is an animistic language that invites us to talk about stability and constants, about similarities and normal and kinds, about magical transformations, quick cures, simple problems, and final solutions. Yet the world we try to symbolize with this language is a world of process, change, differences, dimensions, functions, relationships, growths, interactions, developing, learning, coping, complexity. And the mismatch of our ever-changing world and our relatively static language forms is part of our problem." - Wendell Johnson (Semanticist) Good example of ppl who make up new words to "simplify" things as their world gets more and more complex every year are Lawyers and Accountants. But even so sometimes you end up requiring buildings full of them to decipher what one sentence they came up with last year actually means this year. The problem is not the Lawyer or the Accountant but Human Language itself.