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Brains are not machines like your phone is a machine or your car is a machine. They are complex systems and the result of an emergent process rather than design

Brains are not machines like your phone is a machine or your car is a machine. They are complex systems and the result of an emergent process rather than designed systems with discrete components. The analogy that brains are like machines is harmful because it makes it sound like there is some operating manual and simple cause effect relationships that are known. Our knowledge of the brain is in fact very little. It's a false reassurance and reductionist view to see the brain as a machine simply because it is made of material parts that seem to act in a reliable way towards some end.

luckylion 6y ago
> The analogy that brains are like machines is harmful because it makes it sound like there is some operating manual and simple cause effect relationships that are known. Why? We have complex machines and systems as well, where nobody would claim that there are only simple cause effect relationships and you only need a two-page owner's manual. Drugs work pretty reliably. While you can't predict what exactly is going to happen when you take LSD, you can be pretty sure that something is going to happen. Why, if not because the brain reacting to some chemical? This idea of "don't say it's a machine, you're oversimplifying it" is what's harmful in my eyes. It leads to anti-scientific positions, mysticism and fatalism. If there's nothing we can do to help, and nothing we can learn because it's so super hyper duper complex and "emergent", why bother. It's not, of course. While we don't know everything, we do know something. And we should extend our knowledge. Pretending that we can't know isn't useful.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  I'm not saying we can't know or that our understanding won't improve. I'm saying right now we pretend to know more than we do. LSD has a reliable effect in the short term, just like torching a plot of land in the Amazon has a reliable effect in the short term. It's the long term effects that are subject to the rules of complex systems and not machines.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    But the long term effects are observable as well, aren't they? I understand where you're coming from, and I'm not too excited when people pipe up with things like "the brain is just like X, so you just need to eat more Y to fix your Z", but we're learning plenty of things about how the brain works, and I believe that we do so because we consider it as a complex system that is not unlike a machine. Remove its fuel, and it will stop operating shortly, cut away parts of it and you'll see functionality change or being lost. I see no harm in reasoning about it as a very complex and very large machine with tons of inputs, outputs and modification systems. A long time ago, we'd consider the heart a mystery full of magic, and now we're regularly transplanting hearts and I believe we're "within reach" (though rather decades than months) of implanting completely artificial hearts. I see no reason why we shouldn't make progress towards a better understanding of the brain in the same way.
- virtue3 6y ago
  chemical computer is more accurate than "machine" anyway.
- nathan_compton 6y ago
  In my view its a simple category error, though of a subtle kind. Machines are similar to biological systems in only the most superficial ways: they are non-static systems which exceed a certain complexity and they both follow the laws of physics (see footnote). There are a lot of ways to think about the differences between machines and people. One very simple one is that machines typically function in only a very limited subset of the space of their available degrees of freedom and small deviations are usually catastrophic. Biological systems don't usually have this property. Another way to think about it is that machines show evidence of design, which you might characterize as a certain economy of ideas. Two clocks in a computer a much more likely to be identical or to share major conceptual underpinnings than two clocks in a biological system, for example. I used to have your view of things and then I read Deacon's "Incomplete Nature," a book whose thesis fails to land but is never the less a comprehensive analysis of the properties of living organisms in a unified if rickety system which encompasses the basic laws of physics. It really convinced me that the analogy between brain and machine is poor. The question of what a mind is and how it relates to the brain is not settled science or philosophy, at any rate. It doesn't do anyone any good to pretend it is. (footnote): This is a reasonable assumption to make but its hardly widely believed by the general public nor settled scientific fact. Luminaries like Penrose still assert a fundamental disjunction between what brains do and what machines do and he isn't alone among physicists, to say nothing of the broader philosophical community or the lumpen mass of human opinion.
  - nathan_compton 6y ago
    Another thing: to assert that biological systems are just machines is to subscribe to the same error which allows creationists or intelligent design people to put forward the argument that we ought to take the complexity of life as evidence of a designer. It conflates two totally different phenomena by observing a superficial similarity between the two and ignoring all of their manifold and salient differences.
    - realharo 6y ago
      It's just a metaphor. Because the way it works can be viewed as inputs (sensors, environment, external chemicals) + current state ---> outputs (behavior) + new state kinda like computers or robots, in a deterministic manner (except it is practically impossible to recreate the exact same inputs, or the exact same state). You don't have to take it too literally, people who read it generally understand what it means.
- RHSeeger 6y ago
  > This idea of "don't say it's a machine, you're oversimplifying it" is what's harmful in my eyes. And honestly, there's a lot of complexity to even the smallest thing. A particularly good read, "I, Pencil" goes into how nobody knows how to make even a simple pencil. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil
  - bserge 6y ago
    I agree, but that seems like a poor example. I could make a pencil out of coal and wood. Wouldn't be as good as a factory one, but good enough. Also, chalk and many other stones/minerals can be used.
    - RHSeeger 6y ago
      Yes and no. The story is more about how that specific (type of) pencil was made, and no single person knows all of it. Even things that we consider simple ... really aren't.
realharo 6y ago
I don't think calling it a machine is implying that we understand how it works internally (to a much greater extent than we actually do). Or even that we fully understand how it tends to behave in practice, out there in the "real world", as part of larger systems. But I guess if many people view it that way, then using slightly different language might be better. What I was getting at is the fact that there is no fundamental difference between "I did it" and "my illness caused me to do it" (other than maybe probability). Or in other words, no "free will", in the way that some people view that term.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  I agree that there is no fundamental difference between you doing it and your illness causing it. A person can identify with the results of a machine or a complex system. My issue with the word machine is that in most people's minds that brings up ideas of cross sections, gears, cogs, repairs and so on. People aught to be thinking of a complex system instead like perhaps the ecosystem in the Amazon rainforest.
  - HPsquared 6y ago
    Complex systems can be considered to have "chemical imbalances" - the climate, for example.
cheerlessbog 6y ago
If a space probe discovered some vast alien structure clearly acting fulfilling some strange purpose by some opaque means... would we not usefully describe it as a machine?
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Realistically, if it looked like a bacteria or an animal we would call it life, and it if looked like a printer or a lathe we would call it a machine. That's a more realistic picture of how language works, than expecting everyone to be a philosopher about categories.
bserge 6y ago
They are much more complex, but ultimately, a machine. Without admin access or an operating manual. We don't understand how it works. It's kind of like trying to put a rocket into space in the stone/bronze age. Or figuring out the Google codebase if it was handed to you in Assembly.
- robotbikes 6y ago
  I think that statement "ultimately a machine" is hinged upon a philosophical view that existence is simply the result of various material interactions, chemistry, physics and what have you that is pretty common in our culture but also originates from the view of a clockwork universe with divine creator. Nowadays the idea of a creator is often omitted and people suggest that its just everything is just caused by the consequences of the big bang or what have you. I have been suspicious of this kind of reductionist view but also found that a lot of alternatives fly way too quickly into nonsensical dogma without acknowledging that they are just making up something to feel better. The "truth" I like to embrace is kind a panpsychic panspermia pantheism that recognizes that we as humans with limited perception and knowledge are probably part of much larger processes and there are emergent entities created in part through our minds/bodies. These entities can be us as individual humans or something like a family, church, company or government composed of many individuals but acting in concert as a larger entity.
  - bserge 6y ago
    I'm not denying the creationist idea, either (life seeded by some entities sounds plausible to me; just not the almighty bearded guy in the sky, sounds very dumbed-down). And I think consciousness is more of a virtual machine. Could be compared to a "natural AI" of sorts - that arose on top of our primitive animal selves. But that's just my daydream theories. Groups of people can indeed behave as different/new entities. It's just that the physical composition of our bodies are knwon down to the protons (and even deeper). How they all work is a different question, but there is a specific way they work. Just have to figure it out. When I say machine, I mean it as "construct" of any kind, not just electromechanical. Imo, it would be really nice if we could grow and reattach whole body parts, or grow bodies for transplant, but obviously those ideas bring a lot of negative connotations and ethical problems, so we're investing in electromechanical alternatives instead.

luckylion 6y ago

> The analogy that brains are like machines is harmful because it makes it sound like there is some operating manual and simple cause effect relationships that are known. Why? We have complex machines and systems as well, where nobody would claim that there are only simple cause effect relationships and you only need a two-page owner's manual. Drugs work pretty reliably. While you can't predict what exactly is going to happen when you take LSD, you can be pretty sure that something is going to happen. Why, if not because the brain reacting to some chemical? This idea of "don't say it's a machine, you're oversimplifying it" is what's harmful in my eyes. It leads to anti-scientific positions, mysticism and fatalism. If there's nothing we can do to help, and nothing we can learn because it's so super hyper duper complex and "emergent", why bother. It's not, of course. While we don't know everything, we do know something. And we should extend our knowledge. Pretending that we can't know isn't useful.

partyboat1586 6y ago
I'm not saying we can't know or that our understanding won't improve. I'm saying right now we pretend to know more than we do. LSD has a reliable effect in the short term, just like torching a plot of land in the Amazon has a reliable effect in the short term. It's the long term effects that are subject to the rules of complex systems and not machines.
- luckylion 6y ago
  But the long term effects are observable as well, aren't they? I understand where you're coming from, and I'm not too excited when people pipe up with things like "the brain is just like X, so you just need to eat more Y to fix your Z", but we're learning plenty of things about how the brain works, and I believe that we do so because we consider it as a complex system that is not unlike a machine. Remove its fuel, and it will stop operating shortly, cut away parts of it and you'll see functionality change or being lost. I see no harm in reasoning about it as a very complex and very large machine with tons of inputs, outputs and modification systems. A long time ago, we'd consider the heart a mystery full of magic, and now we're regularly transplanting hearts and I believe we're "within reach" (though rather decades than months) of implanting completely artificial hearts. I see no reason why we shouldn't make progress towards a better understanding of the brain in the same way.
virtue3 6y ago
chemical computer is more accurate than "machine" anyway.
nathan_compton 6y ago
In my view its a simple category error, though of a subtle kind. Machines are similar to biological systems in only the most superficial ways: they are non-static systems which exceed a certain complexity and they both follow the laws of physics (see footnote). There are a lot of ways to think about the differences between machines and people. One very simple one is that machines typically function in only a very limited subset of the space of their available degrees of freedom and small deviations are usually catastrophic. Biological systems don't usually have this property. Another way to think about it is that machines show evidence of design, which you might characterize as a certain economy of ideas. Two clocks in a computer a much more likely to be identical or to share major conceptual underpinnings than two clocks in a biological system, for example. I used to have your view of things and then I read Deacon's "Incomplete Nature," a book whose thesis fails to land but is never the less a comprehensive analysis of the properties of living organisms in a unified if rickety system which encompasses the basic laws of physics. It really convinced me that the analogy between brain and machine is poor. The question of what a mind is and how it relates to the brain is not settled science or philosophy, at any rate. It doesn't do anyone any good to pretend it is. (footnote): This is a reasonable assumption to make but its hardly widely believed by the general public nor settled scientific fact. Luminaries like Penrose still assert a fundamental disjunction between what brains do and what machines do and he isn't alone among physicists, to say nothing of the broader philosophical community or the lumpen mass of human opinion.
- nathan_compton 6y ago
  Another thing: to assert that biological systems are just machines is to subscribe to the same error which allows creationists or intelligent design people to put forward the argument that we ought to take the complexity of life as evidence of a designer. It conflates two totally different phenomena by observing a superficial similarity between the two and ignoring all of their manifold and salient differences.
  - realharo 6y ago
    It's just a metaphor. Because the way it works can be viewed as inputs (sensors, environment, external chemicals) + current state ---> outputs (behavior) + new state kinda like computers or robots, in a deterministic manner (except it is practically impossible to recreate the exact same inputs, or the exact same state). You don't have to take it too literally, people who read it generally understand what it means.
RHSeeger 6y ago
> This idea of "don't say it's a machine, you're oversimplifying it" is what's harmful in my eyes. And honestly, there's a lot of complexity to even the smallest thing. A particularly good read, "I, Pencil" goes into how nobody knows how to make even a simple pencil. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil
- bserge 6y ago
  I agree, but that seems like a poor example. I could make a pencil out of coal and wood. Wouldn't be as good as a factory one, but good enough. Also, chalk and many other stones/minerals can be used.
  - RHSeeger 6y ago
    Yes and no. The story is more about how that specific (type of) pencil was made, and no single person knows all of it. Even things that we consider simple ... really aren't.

realharo 6y ago

I don't think calling it a machine is implying that we understand how it works internally (to a much greater extent than we actually do). Or even that we fully understand how it tends to behave in practice, out there in the "real world", as part of larger systems. But I guess if many people view it that way, then using slightly different language might be better. What I was getting at is the fact that there is no fundamental difference between "I did it" and "my illness caused me to do it" (other than maybe probability). Or in other words, no "free will", in the way that some people view that term.

partyboat1586 6y ago
I agree that there is no fundamental difference between you doing it and your illness causing it. A person can identify with the results of a machine or a complex system. My issue with the word machine is that in most people's minds that brings up ideas of cross sections, gears, cogs, repairs and so on. People aught to be thinking of a complex system instead like perhaps the ecosystem in the Amazon rainforest.
- HPsquared 6y ago
  Complex systems can be considered to have "chemical imbalances" - the climate, for example.

cheerlessbog 6y ago

If a space probe discovered some vast alien structure clearly acting fulfilling some strange purpose by some opaque means... would we not usefully describe it as a machine?

whatshisface 6y ago
Realistically, if it looked like a bacteria or an animal we would call it life, and it if looked like a printer or a lathe we would call it a machine. That's a more realistic picture of how language works, than expecting everyone to be a philosopher about categories.

bserge 6y ago

They are much more complex, but ultimately, a machine. Without admin access or an operating manual. We don't understand how it works. It's kind of like trying to put a rocket into space in the stone/bronze age. Or figuring out the Google codebase if it was handed to you in Assembly.

robotbikes 6y ago
I think that statement "ultimately a machine" is hinged upon a philosophical view that existence is simply the result of various material interactions, chemistry, physics and what have you that is pretty common in our culture but also originates from the view of a clockwork universe with divine creator. Nowadays the idea of a creator is often omitted and people suggest that its just everything is just caused by the consequences of the big bang or what have you. I have been suspicious of this kind of reductionist view but also found that a lot of alternatives fly way too quickly into nonsensical dogma without acknowledging that they are just making up something to feel better. The "truth" I like to embrace is kind a panpsychic panspermia pantheism that recognizes that we as humans with limited perception and knowledge are probably part of much larger processes and there are emergent entities created in part through our minds/bodies. These entities can be us as individual humans or something like a family, church, company or government composed of many individuals but acting in concert as a larger entity.
- bserge 6y ago
  I'm not denying the creationist idea, either (life seeded by some entities sounds plausible to me; just not the almighty bearded guy in the sky, sounds very dumbed-down). And I think consciousness is more of a virtual machine. Could be compared to a "natural AI" of sorts - that arose on top of our primitive animal selves. But that's just my daydream theories. Groups of people can indeed behave as different/new entities. It's just that the physical composition of our bodies are knwon down to the protons (and even deeper). How they all work is a different question, but there is a specific way they work. Just have to figure it out. When I say machine, I mean it as "construct" of any kind, not just electromechanical. Imo, it would be really nice if we could grow and reattach whole body parts, or grow bodies for transplant, but obviously those ideas bring a lot of negative connotations and ethical problems, so we're investing in electromechanical alternatives instead.