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My original point, which I perhaps haven't articulated well, is this. 1. The human brain has outputs (e.g. creative works, or even just movements of limbs etc)

My original point, which I perhaps haven't articulated well, is this. 1. The human brain has outputs (e.g. creative works, or even just movements of limbs etc) 2. The human brain has inputs (e.g. the light landing on retinas, the DNA and processes that gave rise to its structure). 3. The outputs of the human brain are a function of its inputs (probably my most contentious contention :-P ). This is what I mean by it's physical system. 4. The human brain shares these features with a computer. And thus my metaphor is formed. I'm happy to concede that metaphors like this have been shown to be wrong in the past, and indeed we can learn humility by remembering that. But I'm much more interested in thinking about which of 1 through 4 may be wrong and why.

jonathanstrange 4y ago
Your point 3 cannot be shown with current scientific methods and is overall implausible. Popper argues that in his non-reductionist 3 Worlds Theory. It is extremely hard to find halfway convincing reductionist explanations for the simplest human phenomena, let alone the whole of our cultural and technological products and advances. In my opinion, emergence is more plausible than any of the reductionist stories. However, as a computationalist, I consider it possible that similar phenomena could emerge on any computational device.
coldtea 4y ago
>3. The outputs of the human brain are a function of its inputs (probably my most contentious contention :-P ). This is what I mean by it's physical system. Well, this needs to be proven. Note that "the outputs of the human brain are influenced by its inputs" is not the same as "the outputs of the human brain are a function of its inputs". >4. The human brain shares these features with a computer. And thus my metaphor is formed. Doesn't it also share it with, e.g. a meat processing machine? It too has an input (say, meat and spices) and an output (e.g. sausages), and it's output is a function of its input (e.g. different meat and spices create different kinds of sausages).

jonathanstrange 4y ago

Your point 3 cannot be shown with current scientific methods and is overall implausible. Popper argues that in his non-reductionist 3 Worlds Theory. It is extremely hard to find halfway convincing reductionist explanations for the simplest human phenomena, let alone the whole of our cultural and technological products and advances. In my opinion, emergence is more plausible than any of the reductionist stories. However, as a computationalist, I consider it possible that similar phenomena could emerge on any computational device.

coldtea 4y ago

>3. The outputs of the human brain are a function of its inputs (probably my most contentious contention :-P ). This is what I mean by it's physical system. Well, this needs to be proven. Note that "the outputs of the human brain are influenced by its inputs" is not the same as "the outputs of the human brain are a function of its inputs". >4. The human brain shares these features with a computer. And thus my metaphor is formed. Doesn't it also share it with, e.g. a meat processing machine? It too has an input (say, meat and spices) and an output (e.g. sausages), and it's output is a function of its input (e.g. different meat and spices create different kinds of sausages).