5 ms·

To say it less politely: To me it seems more like stoner talk. "Quantum entanglement, ... blablabla, ... collective subconscious, ... blablabla, ... everything

by Garlef 5y ago

To say it less politely: To me it seems more like stoner talk. "Quantum entanglement, ... blablabla, ... collective subconscious, ... blablabla, ... everything is connected, man!"

astrange 5y ago
It seems like early modernism, where they discovered something called radiation existed, and immediately decided it must have superpowered positive effects (curing all diseases) rather than being bad or useless.
Jensson 5y ago
I don't think you understand how science works. The aim isn't to be correct, the aim is to find potential areas of progress. Is my hypothesis here most likely incorrect? Yes, of course it is, but that doesn't matter since if it is correct it would be huge and therefore it is worth exploring. But thanks for your comment, now I understand better how luddites thinks. So in the future when I make comments like above I'll say "this hypothesis is unlikely to be true but...", so that even luddites can understand it.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > I don't think you understand how science works I have some understanding of how science works. The purpose remains to find plausible explanations to phenomena, explanations that show some solidity. The same value - linked to grounds - remains valid for statements in general. This is why we refine them, in the internal "lab", where they are tried under duress of criticism. Which is scientific process.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    And how is "weakening the electric signals between cells makes it easier for cells to alter the message and therefore might give rise to stronger forms of learning" not a plausible link? It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal, making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals. Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn, while animals could have stronger signals making them worse at learning but better at following instincts. Of course I could be wrong, but can you really say there is no way my hypothesis could be right?
    - Garlef 5y ago
      The learning part might be right. I'm put off by the "rationality" part.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        At least to me rationality is the same thing as ability to learn complex things and have those new learnings override your intuitive responses. If you have some other definition of rationality then maybe that is why you thought my post was strange.
        Garlef 5y ago
        > rationality is the same thing as ability to learn complex things I think this covers only a part of what the word means. There's a strong connection to (and to some even identity with) the term "reason". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason "Reason" as a concept is deeply rooted in the enlightenment era and comes with a lot of metaphysical and historical baggage.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      " It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal," - wait, what, why? Do you have any citation for that? IMHO that has absolutely no basis in how neurons work, it does not cost a cell energy to ignore signals. "making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals." this sentence is not even wrong; it essentially presumes that the default behavior is to "not change input signals", which is definitely not how neurons work. "Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn" - perhaps, but you provide no argument about the direction of causality there (if it's related, perhaps the weaker signals are caused by a different level of learning), nor for elevation of "could be" from mere possibility to why it's likely to be the case. I'm not saying that there is no way that your hypothesis could be right, but you do need to pass a certain (quite high) bar of clearly stating your assumptions and demonstrating that all of the assumptions are reasonable before your hypothesis would be worth reviewing and evaluating, and there is very a big gap between "possible" and "plausible".
- Garlef 5y ago
  > how science works... hypothesis This is precisely what I would criticise: It's not actually a hypothesis in terms of being a testable statement: How would you even operationalize "rationality"?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Of course it is testable, psychology tests way more vague concepts all the time. It isn't as testable as concepts in physics or even biology, no, but it is still testable. What would an experiment look like? Lets say we have a drug which gives you animal level of receptors. Inject that into babies and see if they stop developing human level thinking, and try to find out why. Of course we can't run such experiments with our current morals, but it isn't impossible to do. Another thing you can do is look at the level of these in different humans and see if it correlates to achievements on school tests etc, see if some learning disabilities might be correlated to it etc. Or an even cooler thing would be to see if reducing animal levels of receptors would make it easier to teach them stuff. That would probably even pass our moral test.

by Garlef 5y ago

To say it less politely: To me it seems more like stoner talk. "Quantum entanglement, ... blablabla, ... collective subconscious, ... blablabla, ... everything is connected, man!"

astrange 5y ago

It seems like early modernism, where they discovered something called radiation existed, and immediately decided it must have superpowered positive effects (curing all diseases) rather than being bad or useless.

Jensson 5y ago

I don't think you understand how science works. The aim isn't to be correct, the aim is to find potential areas of progress. Is my hypothesis here most likely incorrect? Yes, of course it is, but that doesn't matter since if it is correct it would be huge and therefore it is worth exploring. But thanks for your comment, now I understand better how luddites thinks. So in the future when I make comments like above I'll say "this hypothesis is unlikely to be true but...", so that even luddites can understand it.

mdp2021 5y ago
> I don't think you understand how science works I have some understanding of how science works. The purpose remains to find plausible explanations to phenomena, explanations that show some solidity. The same value - linked to grounds - remains valid for statements in general. This is why we refine them, in the internal "lab", where they are tried under duress of criticism. Which is scientific process.
- Jensson 5y ago
  And how is "weakening the electric signals between cells makes it easier for cells to alter the message and therefore might give rise to stronger forms of learning" not a plausible link? It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal, making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals. Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn, while animals could have stronger signals making them worse at learning but better at following instincts. Of course I could be wrong, but can you really say there is no way my hypothesis could be right?
  - Garlef 5y ago
    The learning part might be right. I'm put off by the "rationality" part.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      At least to me rationality is the same thing as ability to learn complex things and have those new learnings override your intuitive responses. If you have some other definition of rationality then maybe that is why you thought my post was strange.
      - Garlef 5y ago
        > rationality is the same thing as ability to learn complex things I think this covers only a part of what the word means. There's a strong connection to (and to some even identity with) the term "reason". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason "Reason" as a concept is deeply rooted in the enlightenment era and comes with a lot of metaphysical and historical baggage.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    " It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal," - wait, what, why? Do you have any citation for that? IMHO that has absolutely no basis in how neurons work, it does not cost a cell energy to ignore signals. "making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals." this sentence is not even wrong; it essentially presumes that the default behavior is to "not change input signals", which is definitely not how neurons work. "Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn" - perhaps, but you provide no argument about the direction of causality there (if it's related, perhaps the weaker signals are caused by a different level of learning), nor for elevation of "could be" from mere possibility to why it's likely to be the case. I'm not saying that there is no way that your hypothesis could be right, but you do need to pass a certain (quite high) bar of clearly stating your assumptions and demonstrating that all of the assumptions are reasonable before your hypothesis would be worth reviewing and evaluating, and there is very a big gap between "possible" and "plausible".
Garlef 5y ago
> how science works... hypothesis This is precisely what I would criticise: It's not actually a hypothesis in terms of being a testable statement: How would you even operationalize "rationality"?
- Jensson 5y ago
  Of course it is testable, psychology tests way more vague concepts all the time. It isn't as testable as concepts in physics or even biology, no, but it is still testable. What would an experiment look like? Lets say we have a drug which gives you animal level of receptors. Inject that into babies and see if they stop developing human level thinking, and try to find out why. Of course we can't run such experiments with our current morals, but it isn't impossible to do. Another thing you can do is look at the level of these in different humans and see if it correlates to achievements on school tests etc, see if some learning disabilities might be correlated to it etc. Or an even cooler thing would be to see if reducing animal levels of receptors would make it easier to teach them stuff. That would probably even pass our moral test.