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This is a meaningless distinction, though. Of course you can’t describe a human’s behavior purely in terms of genome. Essentially no one holds the position that

by dpark 5y ago

This is a meaningless distinction, though. Of course you can’t describe a human’s behavior purely in terms of genome. Essentially no one holds the position that this is possible. You can’t even describe a bacteria’s behavior purely in genomic terms. Behavior is inextricably linked to the environment. The environment for humans is incredibly complex so the interactions between environment and genome are even more complex. You cannot describe human behavior in terms of just environment either. Maybe this is an interesting position for software, because modern CPUs are explicitly intended to be general purpose and as such are all theoretically equivalent. Even there the abstraction falls apart pretty regularly, though, as Intel gets destroyed by M1 battery life and attacks like rowhammer affect some hardware far more than others. It’s only post Harare as long as the hardware it’s good enough for the purpose.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Of course you can’t describe a human’s behavior purely in terms of genome. Phenotype, whatever. > It’s only post Harare as long as the hardware it’s good enough for the purpose. Most human brains and bodies are good enough for most human purposes. Sure, there's large variation between humans, but the variation between populations isn't great enough to be significant, as far as I'm aware.
- dpark 5y ago
  > Most human brains and bodies are good enough for most human purposes. The difference is that we know how general purpose computers work. We literally know exactly how they work due to the fact that we built them, but also we have developed very useful abstractions for how to use them. We do not have an equivalent understanding of human behavior. Humans are not general purpose computing devices that we know how to program. Humans are extremely complex systems that are already running software and we don’t understand that software. We’re engaged in black box debugging and we are nowhere close to actually understanding the software running on the box (and we’re little closer to understanding the hardware).
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    We don't understand fluid dynamics either; doesn't stop us from modelling it. Also, I wasn't trying to equate computers and brains, or ideas and software. I just picked the example to show how “post-genome” can make sense as an idea. It's not an applicable analogy.
    - dpark 5y ago
      That’s right. We do not fully understand fluid dynamics. We are still trying to model it. And we are certainly not “post fluid dynamics” even though we successfully send water through pipes and put planes into the air.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        We are “post-molecules” for most fluid dynamics behaviour. Though I don't see how fluid dynamics is relevant, here; I'm using these as examples where your general argument falls down, not analogies.
        dpark 5y ago
        I didn’t make a general argument. I made a statement about being “post-genome”. Let’s go back to your original comment: > Modern computing is “post hardware”. That doesn't mean the hardware doesn't matter, or that changes to the hardware don't make a difference; it means describing the hardware is insufficient to describe computers, whereas describing the software is mostly sufficient. You are correct about software. Describing it is largely sufficient to explain computer behavior. This is not the case for human behavior. The genome encodes the hardware, but also encodes a ton of critical software (call it firmware?). Even basic needs like eating are not explained by culture/society. More complex behaviors called out in the article are also not explainable solely by cultural influence. Certainly culture influences the gymbro to build muscle, but it cannot be solely that because most people do not build massive amounts of muscle. If culture were solely responsible you’d expect to see this influence people far more evenly. Same for climbing mountains. There’s very little societal push for this. And I mentioned weddings already. You can certainly explain the specifics of weddings culturally. But you cannot explain why people desire to pair bond culturally. We’re not post genome because we cannot explain most human behavior by looking solely at cultural influences.

by dpark 5y ago

wizzwizz4 5y ago

> Of course you can’t describe a human’s behavior purely in terms of genome. Phenotype, whatever. > It’s only post Harare as long as the hardware it’s good enough for the purpose. Most human brains and bodies are good enough for most human purposes. Sure, there's large variation between humans, but the variation between populations isn't great enough to be significant, as far as I'm aware.

dpark 5y ago
> Most human brains and bodies are good enough for most human purposes. The difference is that we know how general purpose computers work. We literally know exactly how they work due to the fact that we built them, but also we have developed very useful abstractions for how to use them. We do not have an equivalent understanding of human behavior. Humans are not general purpose computing devices that we know how to program. Humans are extremely complex systems that are already running software and we don’t understand that software. We’re engaged in black box debugging and we are nowhere close to actually understanding the software running on the box (and we’re little closer to understanding the hardware).
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  We don't understand fluid dynamics either; doesn't stop us from modelling it. Also, I wasn't trying to equate computers and brains, or ideas and software. I just picked the example to show how “post-genome” can make sense as an idea. It's not an applicable analogy.
  - dpark 5y ago
    That’s right. We do not fully understand fluid dynamics. We are still trying to model it. And we are certainly not “post fluid dynamics” even though we successfully send water through pipes and put planes into the air.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      We are “post-molecules” for most fluid dynamics behaviour. Though I don't see how fluid dynamics is relevant, here; I'm using these as examples where your general argument falls down, not analogies.
      - dpark 5y ago
        I didn’t make a general argument. I made a statement about being “post-genome”. Let’s go back to your original comment: > Modern computing is “post hardware”. That doesn't mean the hardware doesn't matter, or that changes to the hardware don't make a difference; it means describing the hardware is insufficient to describe computers, whereas describing the software is mostly sufficient. You are correct about software. Describing it is largely sufficient to explain computer behavior. This is not the case for human behavior. The genome encodes the hardware, but also encodes a ton of critical software (call it firmware?). Even basic needs like eating are not explained by culture/society. More complex behaviors called out in the article are also not explainable solely by cultural influence. Certainly culture influences the gymbro to build muscle, but it cannot be solely that because most people do not build massive amounts of muscle. If culture were solely responsible you’d expect to see this influence people far more evenly. Same for climbing mountains. There’s very little societal push for this. And I mentioned weddings already. You can certainly explain the specifics of weddings culturally. But you cannot explain why people desire to pair bond culturally. We’re not post genome because we cannot explain most human behavior by looking solely at cultural influences.