4 ms·
For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought expe
by pacaro 6y ago
For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought experiment is a good example of this.
Quoting from wikipedia "For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle
- R0b0t1 6y agoBut if you observe the behavior of a bacterium, operating under similar principles but seeking instead a salt or pH value, you would do well to describe it similarly. The bacterium is seeking a certain condition. It can not think, but it is a machine that acts with purpose and must be modeled accordingly.
- Orou 6y agoI'm curious at what point an organism is considered to be capable of thought. From a mechanistic standpoint, it seems like the goal-seeking behavior of a simple organism could be modeled as a gradient ascent toward a local optima. But even complex organisms are still seeking certain conditions to maximize their ability to survive and reproduce. Is the existence of a brain enough for a creature to be considered capable of thought? How complex does an organism have to be before we no longer think of it as being a biological "machine"? Or do we simply fall into the trap the GP described, where once something is complex enough that we don't understand what is going on from a purely mechanical perspective we consider it close enough to human to empathize with it?
- robbintt 6y agoA preread for your journey into the belly of the beast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_ethology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_ethology
- R0b0t1 6y agoWhat do you mean by thought? A much simpler question can be answered: is it possible to be cruel to an animal? The accepted answer revolves around whether or not you can influence the behavior of the animal (or machine). Crabs naturally hide under rocks. If you shock them when they hide under the rocks they eventually stop hiding under the rocks. Meanwhile a bacteria, by itself, will never learn to associate a stimulus with a condition. That may capture the capability for thought. There are higher levels past it, like learning to model the behavior of other organisms, and those models eventually turning into a theory of self.
- ISL 6y agoI routinely anthropomorphize PID loops when tuning them. One of the best nuclear astrophysicists I know thinks about stars as entities that want to stay alive -- "I'm running out of hydrogen, what can I burn next?" That approach yields the right phenomenology almost all the time.
- Tarq0n 6y agoThat makes sense for really old things like stars, after all survivorship bias is a critical factor in most long lasting things we observe.
- blacksmith_tb 6y agoWell, yes and no. We say things like "the star wants to go nova" when we mean "stars at this stage in their development tend to go nova" - but the star doesn't want, any more than it dreams or fears to go nova. Anthropomorphizing might help us generalize about things made by people (who do want, dream and fear) though I don't think that's always the case, but I would say it isn't always useful for non-human (and especially non-living) systems.
- hammock 6y agoTrying to follow that wiki article. Is the point that these vehicles appear to have goal-seeking behavior, but that is probably a projection on the part of the observer - and really its behavior is simply an emergent result of the incentives/effects programmed between sensor and effector?
- pacaro 6y agoYes. IMO the thought experiment is really more about us than anything else.